


Tumbling Star Wars

by esama



Series: Tumbling Snippets [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Snippets, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-05 08:30:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 50,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5368520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various Star Wars snippets. Some crossovers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. #55367

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by Darlene, many thanks.

Anakin is unconscious. He'd never feel it.

"I'm sorry Anakin," Obi-Wan chokes, igniting his lightsaber once more. Everything in him fights against his conviction but he steps forward regardless - steps down and towards Anakin's fallen, broken body. "I'm so sorry. I do love you. I will always love you. It wasn't… it wasn't supposed to be like this. I'm so sorry…"

The lightsaber shakes in his hand once and is then still. He can't miss. Anakin might wake if he misses. It would be painful if he misses. His hand has to be steady - he cannot miss now.

Anakin doesn't wake.

 

* * *

Padmé goes into labour in the middle of their escape. The stress, the horror, the grief, it all presses down on her and Obi-Wan can feel her breaking under it. What Anakin's hand had started, his death finishes.

She doesn't live long enough to speak the names of her and Anakin's children, but Obi-Wan hears them regardless, echoing into the void in the Force where Jedi once used to be.

Leia, the elder, wails against the injustice of her life, already strong in the Force, already smart enough to interpret it. She knows she's born an orphan and she wails. Luke, the younger, is quiet. His presence echoes into the Force quiet and in the light of his sister's ferocity, nearly nondescript. But he too is strong.

They're both Skywalkers, through and through - in strength and tragedy both.

And as Padmé Amidala fades from life, Obi-Wan gives all of his now untethered love to them.

 

* * *

Their lives will be brief. Already the Emperor and his new, horrible Empire are after them, looking for them, reaching out to claim them. Sidious' anger, hatred and greed echo in the Force, now so very dark and empty, and it's all Obi-Wan can do to keep a straight course and try to escape.

Their lives will be short because Obi-Wan will do everything in his power to keep the twins from the Emperor. Everything.

 

* * *

Two months. That's as much as they get before it's all over.

Obi-Wan slides to the cockpit floor, cradling the twins in his arms. The engines have failed, the thrusters shot out. They're dead in space and the imperial army is closing in.

It's almost over now.

"I tried," Obi-Wan murmurs to the ever watchful Leia, with Luke asleep against his chest. "I'm sorry I couldn't do better. I tried."

He's so tired now. Anakin would never forgive him, and Qui-Gon would be so disappointed, but he's so tired. He's alone and friendless, the Force hollow and cold around him, devoid of hope and comfort. He's too weak to fight alone anymore.

"I'm sorry," he whispers and kisses Leia's downy hair. "I'm so very sorry."

That's not good enough, a voice spits at him, and it sounds like Anakin.

 

* * *

When Obi-Wan wakes it's not in the holding cell of an imperial cruiser. It's not a holding cell at all.

"Careful now, easy, easy," a voice so familiar and so long lost speaks into his ear as he tries to get up. "You're still badly malnourished and weak - no quick movements now…"

Obi-Wan stares uncomprehending at Qui-Gon's face, his mouth working without a sound. When he manages to speak, his voice cracks. "Luke. Leia."

"The younglings are safe. Look," Qui-Gon says and motions. Not two meters from Obi-Wan's bed there is a shielded crib, the twins contently asleep within. Both of them alive. Both of them well.

"They are strong," Qui-Gon says, he too watching the twins. "You're in far worse shape than they are. I suppose you gave all your food to them?"

Obi-Wan swallows. He had - and reprogramming the food processor to create a suitable milk substitute had been no easy task.

"They will be fine," Qui-Gon promises and turns to him just as the door to what Obi-Wan realises is a spaceship medbay opens. "As will you. And once you feel strong enough, I have a number of questions for you."

Obi-Wan doesn't answer because in that moment someone Obi-Wan can hardly remember steps in - Anakin Skywalker as he'd been right at the start. Young, innocent and fully Light.

And at his heels Obi-Wan himself - over a dozen years and hundreds of battles younger.

 

* * *

"How is our guest doing, Master Jinn?"

Qui-Gon bows his head. "He's recovering well, your majesty, and should be back to full health in a day or two. The children are doing well also, and have not suffered the same sort of malnutrition as our elder guest."

The Queen of Naboo nods her head thoughtfully. "Have you been able to talk with him? Does he have an explanation as to why his ship was so badly damaged and so stranded in deep space?"

"Not yet, Your Majesty." In fact the man hadn't spoken much at all, going completely silent after confirming that the children were alive and well. "But I am hoping to speak with him concerning that soon. In the meantime I ask that no one bothers him or the children. He's showing signs of stress and deep emotional disturbance and I wish to avoid making it worse."

"Do you think he might be dangerous, Master Jinn?"

"No, Your Majesty. But I do not think he's a man to be pushed either."

 

* * *

Qui-Gon carries with him three lightsabers the next time he goes to see their rescues from the derelict space ship. He's gone over both lightsabers carried by the eldest of their guests but they offered little clues about him. Nothing that wasn't utterly impossible anyway.

The man wore a Jedi's robes, he carried a Jedi's weapons - but he couldn't be one. There wasn't a Jedi in the order that matched his age, species, and appearance. Never mind the children he cared and worried for with all the desperate attentiveness of a single father.

What a mystery to find and so soon after their encounter with the Sith, too.

Their guest is up and sitting on his recovery bed when Qui-Gon enters the medbay. He has one of the children in his arms and he's feeding them from a bottle, a tender, broken hearted look about his worn, bearded face.

"Is it time for my interrogation then?" he asks, running a gentle hand over the child's head.

"I wouldn't go as far as to say interrogation," Qui-Gon says and sets the two lightsabers on a table at the far end of the room. Not that he thinks the man would even try to use them. Not with the children present. "But there are questions you should answer. Starting with your name."

"My name," the stranger repeats, looking at him. "You don't know then?"

"Should I?"

The stranger blinks and then leans back a little. "You don't, you really don't - have I truly changed so much?"

"Have we met then?" Qui-Gon asks, frowning. There is a strange familiarity about the man - something that went beyond the Jedi garb. But he couldn't quite put a finger on it.

"You could say that," the man murmurs and looks down at the child in his arms. "I have no notion how I ended up here. It should be impossible. But then… many things that happened should have been impossible."

Before Qui-Gon can ask, the man turns his face to the side and motions at an imperfection there, a mole on his right cheek bone. "Does this not look familiar?"

Qui-Gon stares, uncomprehending. Then it strikes him and he stands up straighter in alarm.

"Do get your Padawan," the man says, his attention fully on the child again. "A genetic comparison is in order, don't you think?"

 

* * *

As the test confirms it, Obi-Wan stares at the man. At least a decade if not two his elder, he looks like Obi-Wan could only wish he'd never end up looking. Haggard and visibly tired and weakened by what must have been weeks of stress and slow starvation.

Unlike Obi-Wan, he is taking his sudden dislocation in time calmly. In truth he doesn't seem to feel anything at all about it.

"This is not the strangest thing to have occurred to me, and far from the worst," he says as he smears bacta on the small pinprick wound on his arm. "I've had a markedly unusual career you could say."

"How old are you?" Obi-Wan asks, unable to help himself.

"Thirty seven," the man says and runs a hand over his beard. It has a hint of grey in it. "I think I aged ten in the last two, however."

He turns to look at Qui-Gon and then around them. "A Nubian cruiser, and I am fairly certain I saw Anakin before. Are you on the way to Coruscant?"

"Yes - which you would not ask unless those things could indicate some other destination," Qui-Gon says, slow.

Obi-Wan's elder self ignores that bit of deduction and nods. "Have you talked to the Naboo concerning my identity?"

"No," Qui-Gon arches an eyebrow at him. "I did only know myself just now, after all."

"Could I convince you to keep it between us?" Obi-Wan's elder self asks seriously. "Inform the Council when we make it to Coruscant and you can speak with them privately face to face, but say nothing over transmission."

Qui-Gon frowns. "Why?"

"Because the master of the Sith you encountered could do terrible things with what I know about the future - and it's not something I wish to risk."

Obi-Wan sat a little straighter at that, turning to his master who too looked far more alert. "You know who it is," he says.

"Oh yes," the man agrees. "And I will tell the Council when we make it to Coruscant and not sooner."

Qui-Gon looks like he would like to argue but in the end he doesn't. "Very well," he says and then turns his attention to the shielded crib. "About the younglings…"

Obi-Wan turns to his elder self just quick enough to see his expression twist in pain. "They are my responsibility," he says. "And if you hold any respect for me, then please, leave it at that."

 

* * *

"Are you a Jedi?"

Obi-Wan looks up from Luke, who lies in the crib, and to the door. Anakin - an eight year old Anakin, still flawless and faultless - lingers hesitantly by the doorway. His hair is still sun bleached and not yet shorn short for a Padawan's cut, and his clothes are rough, hand sown. Slave garb - no one had anything better to offer a child on board the Queen's ship.

"You look a bit like Master Qui-Gon - and you got lightsabers. I didn't know Jedi could carry two," Anakin says.

"A Jedi can carry as many as they can use," Obi-Wan answers automatically. It's been so long, but the reaction is ingrained in him by years of practice. He looks away, swallowing dryly. "I look like Master Jinn, do I?"

"Well," Anakin flounders, his eyes widening. "You, uh, dress the same?"

"No need to fret - I consider it a compliment," Obi-Wan says and gently holds Leia against his shoulder. "And there is a certain code to how Jedi dress - it makes them easily recognizable."

"I guess that makes sense," Anakin says and looks at Leia. "Is he yours?"

"She. And… yes, she is," Obi-Wan answers, pain twisting deep in his gut. He ignores it.

"What's her name?"

Obi-Wan hesitates and then sits down on the recovery bed, inviting Anakin to join him. "Her name is Leia - and that over there is her younger brother, Luke," he says as Anakin climbs up to sit beside him. "She's just eaten," Obi-Wan explains. "I'm trying to get her to burp so that she doesn't get gas later on."

"I know - my mom's a midwife. I know all about babies," Anakin says which makes Obi-Wan's eyebrows arch. "Well except like their sex - that's hard to see outright, babies look the same when they're that young. Do a lot of Jedi have kids?"

"Only very few and the circumstances are always special," Obi-Wan answers softly. He doesn't recall Anakin's mother being a midwife. Had it never come up - or had Anakin simply forgotten? "Normally such attachments are forbidden."

"What? Really? Why?" Anakin asks, his eyes wide. "And how come you have kids then?"

Obi-Wan smiles sadly. "Their mother died," he says. As did their father, but that Obi-Wan will keep to himself. "My situation is special. And whether I'm a Jedi or not is somewhat under question currently."

"Because of the kids?" Anakin asks, horrified.

"And other things," Obi-Wan agrees and looks at him as he rubs a palm over Leia's back. "Shouldn't you be in bed? It's rather late."

"Can't sleep. It's cold here," Anakin says. "And I guess I'm nervous. Master Qui-Gon is taking me to see the Jedi Council and I might become a Jedi - but that's only if they like me."

Obi-Wan nods slowly. "You being nervous about it now will not affect the outcome for you, you realise," he then says.

"I know - but it's not like I can stop worrying just like that," Anakin says and looks up to him. "Why are you still up?"

"I have to feed the twins," Obi-Wan says and then sighs. "I will be seeing the Council as well and I suppose I too am nervous."

"Ha!" Anakin says, triumphant. "I didn't know Jedi could get nervous."

"Oh, they can. They just tend to be quite good at hiding it," Obi-Wan says, and Leia finally let's out a disgruntled little burp. "There you go, Princess," he sighs and stands to take her back to the crib. Anakin watches, interested, kicking his feet idly as he does.

"What happened to their mom?" Anakin asks. "How did she die?"

Obi-Wan hesitates as he settles Leia beside her brother. "She… she got very tired. She couldn't fight anymore," he then says.

"Was there a battle?" Anakin asks, quiet and eager all at once.

"Of sorts. Some very bad things happened," Obi-Wan says quietly. "She fought so long and so hard that eventually she'd given her all. She had no strength left. The battle wore her out and…" he trailed away, wondering. How long had Padmé known of Anakin's darkness? How long had she been struggling with it?

How had he known nothing?

Obi-Wan sighs. "You can take the bed if you like," he says. "I don't think I will be sleeping much tonight at any rate. Just know that Leia and Luke tend to wake up multiple times per night."

"I can handle that but… are you sure? You kind of look like you really need some sleep," Anakin says worriedly.

"I'm used to going without," Obi-Wan assures him while settling in to watch the twins sleep.

And as it was… He wouldn't be able to sleep until he saw the Jedi temple, no longer littered with the bodies of children but full of life once again.

"Hey," Anakin says even as he settles on the recovery bed. "What's your name?"

Obi-Wan hesitates a moment. "It's Ben," he then says. "And you?"

The boy blinks at him sleepily. "I'm Ani. It's nice to meet you, Ben."

 

* * *

"Oh. I'm sorry. I had hoped to find you alone."

Ben looks up from the datapad he'd been reading and then glances at Anakin, asleep on his bed. "A telling statement," he comments and puts the datapad away. "You may consider me alone. Anakin is quite asleep."

His younger self steps into the room and the door closes after him. "Why is he here?"

"On a ship occupied by Jedi, and the fairly imposing retinue of a queen, it's not so strange that he finds the presence of other children comforting - even if Luke and Leia are quite bit younger," Ben shrugs his shoulders. "And I represent a familiar concept, I suppose."

"Which is…?" The young Jedi frowns, watching him thoughtfully.

"A parent," Ben answers plainly. "What can I do for you?"

The other hesitates, dithering by the door. His eyes stray towards the crib and he straightens. "I can't and I won't make assumptions about what I know nothing about - your situation must be very far removed from mine. But as hard as I try, I cannot imagine a situation where… that is to say… how did…?"

Ben blinks slowly as the younger man tries and fails to word the question. "You can't imagine a situation where you might end up a father?" He asks and the younger man nods. "Let me imagine it for you then. Satine."

His younger self all but jumps at that. "Are they… did you… is she…?" He asks, half horrified, half exhilarated.

"No. But just by that word alone you can build up a whole litany of assumptions," Ben shrugs. "It has been a dozen years for me. I've had time to build up relationships. Time to acquire responsibilities. The things that came to pass… No. You cannot imagine them. And perhaps you should not try."

The younger man says nothing for a moment, thinking it over. "You betrayed the Code," he then accuses softly.

"And you fear you too will do so?" Ben asks and tilts his head to the side. Then he looks away. "Funny how little it matters in the end," he whispers. What was a code with no one left to follow it?

"It matters to me, now," the younger man snaps at him.

"Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?" Ben asks, glancing at him. "Make no mistake - you and I are already going down different roads and those roads will only change more if I have anything to do with it. This stopped being my past the moment I re-entered it - my past will not be your future. I will make sure of it."

His younger self swallows at that. "Something went wrong, didn't it?"

"Many things went wrong. But now I can change things," Ben says, more to convince himself than anyone else. "I can make it all right again."

"And how do you know that you won't make it worse?"

Ben chuckles at that. "There is no conceivable way I could make the future worse than it already was."

The younger man considers that for a moment. "And you'll change the future, even if it means the younglings will never be born?"

"Especially so."

 

* * *

When Qui-Gon goes looking for his Padawan and his most recent protégé, he both is and isn't surprised to find them both in the medbay. His Padawan is meditating by a wall, carefully out of the way, and Anakin is… helping their guest feed the children. He has one of them lying comfortably in his lap, and under the man's careful guidance he's feeding the baby from a bottle.

"You seem to have claimed my companions for your own," Qui-Gon comments.

"Some of them," the bearded man agrees. "Jar Jar you may keep - I'm afraid he would be somewhat detrimental in the act of child care."

Qui-Gon can see his Padawan's lips quirk in amusement but he says nothing. "How kind of you," Qui-Gon says dryly and shakes his head. "In any case I came to get my now stolen companions for a morning meal and to inform you that we'll be arriving at Coruscant in two hours. The ship will land directly at the Senate."

"Alright, I'll prepare for that then," man says and looks at Anakin. "Might I borrow Ani here when we do land?" He then asks. "Another pair of hands would be helpful."

"Ani?" Qui-Gon asks.

"I don't mind, Master Qui-Gon," the boy says quickly, sounding even a bit relieved. "We're all heading to see the Jedi Council anyway, right? So I might as well help Ben."

"Ben?" Qui-Gon asks, arching an eyebrow at the man.

"If it is no trouble of course," the man says, smiling.


	2. Empire in Ashes

By the time Obi-Wan makes it back to Coruscant, it's already too late.

The holovid of the battle plays on every screen in the city - on every screen across the world. Soon, Obi-Wan knows, it would speed like the shock wave of an explosion all across the Inner Core, infecting every screen on its way, this repeat loop of everything they thought they knew collapsing.

The video of Anakin facing the Sith master. Dark Lord Sidius.

High Chancellor Palpatine.

"When?" is all he can ask, as the vid plays on and on and on. It is Anakin's vid, Obi-Wan knows that much. He recognises the quality of it - recorded by the minidroids Anakin had made himself. He must have known he needed proof so he created it - he'd gone to face the Dark Lord, secretly recording the whole thing. Recording Palpatine's unknowing confession.

And his own betrayal.

"It's been six hours," Windu says darkly. "The vid went live a little over an hour after it was recorded."

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asks feebly.

"He hacked the central broadcast system to publicise it. It had already run twice before anyone thought to take it down - by then it was too late."

"No, that's not… where is he?" Obi-Wan asks, tearing his eyes from the vid.

"Know we do not. Disappear both he and Senator Amidala have," Yoda says, ears drooping slightly. "Taken flight they have."

"Skywalker must have taken her off the planet - probably even before he published the vid," Windu says, shaking his head. "He got scared."

Obi-Wan let out a strangled sound and looked up at the vid again. Palpatine is smugly explaining his plot to Anakin, fully confident in the knowledge that he had not only succeeded in every particular but that he had Anakin firmly on his side. And why?

Because Anakin needed him to save his wife. His wife.

"Everyone is… investigating this, I suppose," Windu says darkly. "Tracing back everything Palpatine said, every thing he referenced. So far it's all proving correct. Including the secret commands of the Clones."

"Ceased following orders they have," Yoda says, looking at Obi-Wan. "Refuse to do so until they see their supreme commander."

"Meaning Palpatine," Obi-Wan says, feeling hollow. So many good men he'd trusted and gone to war with - and now it was proven that neither the war they'd fought nor the bonds they'd built existed. It was all a lie. All a terrible nightmare.

"Palpatine's dead," Windu says, cutting. "And so is his second in command, Griveous, thanks to you. After them he trusted the chain of command to no one that's still alive. The Clones have no supreme commander."

"Something they do have," Yoda says, watching Obi-Wan closely. "A High General they do have."

Obi-Wan numbly stares at the vid of Anakin facing the Sith Lord behind every horrible thing that had happened in the last twenty and more years - the High Chancellor whom they'd trusted to put an end to the atrocities. Anakin, who's betrayed the code, who according to Palpatine is about to become a father. Anakin. His Padawan.

"High General," Obi-Wan repeats, slow as the vid keeps on playing.

"Obi-Wan - you must take command," Windu says urgently.

"Into chaos everything might fall any moment now," Yoda says. "Just as betrayed the Separatists are as we perhaps - but build grudges both sides have. Enemies made have been. Debts that paid cannot be. Much anger there is."

"The galaxy is a bomb about to go off," Windu agrees. "This will destroy the Republic if we don't act now."

Obi-Wan stares at them for a moment and then looks back at the vid. Palpatine tells Anakin how he'd subtly manipulated everything to suit his needs. The war, the Senate, the Separatists… everything. How now all he had to do is to say the word - and the galaxy would be his.

Anakin listens on the video, listening, listening… even agreeing in places. Obi-Wan listens to his Padawan agreeing with the Sith Lord - and then watches them fight. The battle is terrifying, the powers displayed make Obi-Wan's skin crawl.

And then the High Chancellor is defeated. And with him died the illusion of freedom and justice.

Obi-Wan looks away, weary.

"Do you really think there's a Republic left?"

 

* * *

 

It's five years since Skywalker Day and Padmé has almost managed to convince herself that it would be all right.

Anakin has finally settled. It has been a slow and hard process for both of them, his winding road to peace - to what she now figures is his first true taste of freedom. First a slave following his master's orders, then a Padawan following his master's orders and finally an unknowing Sith apprentice following his master's orders… Padmé's husband had never been a free man. Not before he denounced his last master and fled.

A free Anakin Skywalker isn't altogether different from the one who had a master to obey - but the differences were marked. Most notable was the dark rebellion that had always been bubbling beneath the surface - it is gone now. Gone is the heated danger and promise of lethal violence just beneath the surface. Instead there is something else now. A desire to protect that while oftentimes is a little overzealous, is nonetheless an improvement.

And they have so many things to protect now. Leia. Luke. Little Shmi. And of course Owen and Beru and Anakin's step father, Lars, who is as good as a grandfather to their children. Many, many precious things, the loss of which would break the kind man Anakin was finding within himself.

But it has been five years and they are safe. Beyond their sun scorched shelter the galaxy churns away under the hand of its new leader and on Tatooine none of it touches them.

Not until it does.

 

* * *

 

 

The Lars farm has grown since they joined the family there. Some if it was Padmé's own fault she knows. She hadn't been able to keep herself from interfering with the farm and had at first only advised the Lars family with their business transactions - and eventually taken over those aspects of running a moisture farm entirely. And the farm has benefited from it greatly.

They now have over a hundred vaporators and employ a good thirty farm hands. Then there is Anakin's repair business which, thanks to his almost uncanny skills with technology, is booming - he employs two assistants of his own and by Tatooine standards he makes quite a bit of money.

The farm has so grown, more houses have been added, for the workers, vehicles and if course the produce. It can already be called a village really. The Lars Settlement. There are even talks of adding a postal station.

As such the settlement sees quite a bit of traffic, despite being so far out. Speeders come and go daily and, between minding the children and the work, Padmé has learned to ignore the traffic. It has nothing on Coruscant anyway.

So, when a new speeder comes in, she doesn't pay it much mind. Not until Beru comes into her office. "There's some offworlders here wanting to meet you," she says.

"Did they say what it's about?" Padmé says and stands, Shmi tucked securely against her chest in her sling. "And where are Luke and Leia?"

"They didn't say and the kids are out with Anakin - they're out fixing number 46," Beru says as they head down the earthen corridor and towards the central hub of the farm. "Should I call him in?"

"No I'm sure that…" Padmé stops as she sees the Togruta woman standing up on the ground level, just at the edge of the central hub. "Actually yes, phrase call him in."

While Beru frowns at her, Padmé makes the short trek up from the inner courtyard and to ground level, to meet their guest. "Ahsoka," she says and the Togruta meets her half way with a smile.

"Padmé. It's so good to see you," she says, clasping Padmé by the shoulder and then looking down at Shmi. "Oh my - yours?"

"Oh, yes," Padmé says, a little unsure how to proceed. Ahsoka had left the Jedi Order long before Anakin had, but she'd still been a Jedi. And that isn't something you just stop being. "How did you - why are you here?" Padmé asks nervously, tugging at Shmi's sling to shield her from the sun.

"I'm here to see you - and the Skyguy. Though I guess he's the Skydad now," Ahsoka says, grinning. "No need to worry, Padmé, I come in peace. We all do."

"We," Padmé repeats and then looks past Ahsoka to the speeder she'd came in. There's a man in a sandy cloak and hood there - recognisable even out of armour. "Commander Rex," Padmé says, shocked and afraid and happy all at once. He's still alive, then. It's something they hadn't known for sure in their exile.

"General now, I'm afraid," the soldier says, pushing his hood down and smiling. He's older now and somehow different. All at once he looks more stressed than he ever has - and yet more at ease.

"I'm… delighted to see you both - but what are you doing here?" Padmé asks. Ahsoka is one thing but Rex… Rex is a clone trooper. And judging by the rise in rank, a loyal soldier of the Empire.

And that… that does not bode well for this meeting.

"We're here totally as friendly visitors only," Ahsoka assures her and then, making Padmé's fears all the worse, she adds, "escorting another friendly visitor and nothing else."

A third hooded figure stands from the speeder and Padmé's knees almost buckle. She doesn't need to even see his full face to recognise him. The firm line of his shoulders and the well trimmed beard are more than enough.

As Padmé stares, stunned, he steps forward, to stand by Rex and Ahsoka.

"Master - General - I mean-" Padmé stumbles and draws a shuddering breath. Shaking a little, she bows her head. "My lord."

"I'd rather you called me Obi-Wan," the Emperor of the Democratic Empire of the Unified Galaxy says, dry as the desert around them.


	3. Snakefic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which was written as dozens of small prompts and features a Basilisk!Obi-Wan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbetaed

"Honestly, Master, I couldn't refuse it. The locals were very… insistent."

Yoda looked between the harassed looking Knight and the egg he'd brought with him from his mission to Stewjon. "Insistent you should have also been. For rewards the Jedi do their duties not."

"With all due respect, it's not that they wanted to reward me. It was more like they wanted to get rid of the egg. I don't think they would have let me leave the planet without it."

"Dangerous is it?"

"I have no idea. There are some legends about amphibians and fowl and deadly gazes - superstition for the most part. It's probably nothing."

"Insistent over nothing, were they?" Yoda asked, resting a hand over the hard eggshell. The thing was almost bigger than he was. "Think so I do not. Take charge of this egg I will. To the top of its mystery I will get."

-

It was only the matter of time before the egg hatched. Yoda couldn't deny his blame in it - not that anyone really questioned him on the matter. But had he left the egg be, the being in it would have most likely stayed dormant. Only he hadn't.

And now there was a serpentine little creature, perhaps a meter in length, wandering his chambers. It was a soft shade of beige through out, with dizzying blue grey eyes - eyes which were sharp with intelligence. But thought it was much like a snake, it wasn't one. The head shape was wrong.

Yoda watched as the little creature slithered all about the floor, making a circuit all along the walls before coming back to him and to its own eggshells.

It stared at him. He stared back. It shifted, rearing its head back. Yoda leaned back as well.

"The Force, is it here?" the snake finally asked. "Heard much about it I did, before out I came. Talk about it often you do. But find it I cannot. Here the Force is not?"

It was first time in a long time that Yoda positively gaped at someone.

-

It happened sometimes that when parents gave their children to the Jedi Order they wanted sever any connection with the children. In those cases, the child's records would be erased and he'd be given a new name.

"A style of naming there is, in the Jedi order, for those nameless ones," Yoda said, absently petting the snake. "A Temple tradition. Use it we may for your name."

The serpent considered it, leaning his head to Yoda's hand. "If a style there is mean does it that know the ones that were renamed people do?"

"Noticeable it is, yes, but only of you know of it. Many there are not who renamed have been. Keep their names, most do."

"Renamed I wouldn't be though, the only name it would be," the snake said and rested his head on Yoda's knee. He yawned. "The Temple tradition fine sounds. For my name use it we may…"

"Then some options I will select for you…" Yoda said and paused as the little snake fell asleep. "… and consider them you can once awake again you are. "

-

"I… I… Master Yoda? You have a, um…"

"What have I, crèche master?"

The crèche master opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and closed it again. Yoda continued to watch him in all polite attentiveness, even as the pale snake squirmed over the little Grand Master's diminutive form and to his shoulders, where the snake raised its head to look around.

"This the crèche is?" The snake asked curiously.

"The crèche this is," Yoda agreed and eased the snake off his shoulders. "A new initiate for you I have. Obi-Wan Kenobi this is."

The snake bowed his head. "Happy to meet you I am, crèche master."

The crèche master gawked for a moment before swallowing his shock and bowing back. "Welcome… young Initiate."

"Learn well you will, Obi-Wan," Yoda said. "Great faith I have in you."

"Let you down I will not, Master Yoda."

As the snake bowed and then slithered in to investigate the crèche, the crèche master ran a shaky hand over his face.

Speech lessons, he decided. They'd start with speech lessons.

-

There was a monster on the water.

The little Jedi initiates in the pool had clustered close together as they treaded the water, trying to splash as little as possible. Everyone's eyes were wide open and alert, though none showed signs of fear. They were Jedi, after all.

A dark shape passed under them and Bant shrieked as something touched her fin, scales rasping against the soft membrane. Before she could try to swim away, a sinuous shape shot out and wrapped around her as a large, serpentine head breached the surface, opening its many fanged maw -

"Tag!" Obi-Wan grinned at her, splattering water everywhere. "You're it!"

Shrieking with laughter, the younglings scattered once more.

-

Bant paused mid word to stare at Obi-Wan. The beige snake was furiously nuzzling the end of his snout against her thigh.

"What are you doing?" she asked, calmly, because she was going to be a Jedi and screaming about cooties wasn't the way Jedi handled these sorts of things.

"Itch," Obi-Wan answered, making a face like only a snake can. "It won't go away!"

"Shoulda told me," Bant said and reached to scratch at his nose. Obi-Wan made a hiss of delight - and then there was a sudden ripping noise.

Together they stated at the flimsy thin, translucent scale that had came off. The looked at each other. Then at the scale.

"MASTER!" They screamed in unison, rushing to the crèche master, Bant carrying the scale and Obi-Wan's eyes wide with terror.

"My skin's coming off!" he cried, horrified.

"Yes, looks like it is," the crèche master answered calmly, not the slightest bit surprised - which really didn't help the initiates' panic at all.

The ensuing explanation and the throwaway comment that "I'll expect you to shed some hundred times in your lifetime," certainly didn't make it any better.

-

"Dis is sho undignified!" Obi-Wan bemoaned before dunking his head in the metal vat of antivenom solution and blowing ferociously.

"I am very sorry, child, but until the venom stops leaking into your nasal cavity, there is no other way, " the crèche master said. "We can't risk you sneezing on somebody."

"I ged thad. I jush wish I sdopped leaking! " Obi-Wan whined, rubbing his wet snout against the warm sand they'd filled his sick chamber with. "Aww and now I'm shedding too! Dis is de worsd!"

The crèche master sighed, patting his heaving side compassionately. No matter the species, sick younglings were all the same it seemed.

-

"Hrmmm…" Yoda hummed. Obi-Wan waited as patiently as he could, all the while the other initiates were already picking their training sabers. "Hrmmm…"

"Come on, Master Yoda. It's obvious Flakey-One can't ever use a lightsaber - he doesn't even have hands!"

"Judge so quickly you should not, Bruck Chun - and names you should not call others."

"He's right though," Obi-Wan muttered. "No hands or fins or even tentacles, so… no lightsaber."

Yoda whacked him with his gimer stick. With Obi-Wan's increasingly tough scales, it was barely a tap. "Judging quickly you are as well. No, Obi-Wan - hands you have and powerful hands they are. The Force your hands are. And now to use them, you must learn."

-

By the time Obi-Wan had figured out how to move a lightsaber around with the Force alone, it was obvious that there were certain benefits to wielding a blade without the limitations of a body, hand and reach.

"If manoeuvrability you can truly master, and speed, then a form will the issue be," Yoda mused.

Of course Obi-Wan had to learn the basics if saber combat same as everyone else - blast reflection was crucially important even to him. But after that, the basics of saber use were very different. Since Obi-Wan's lightsaber was basically flying around him, his reach was as good as his grasp of the Force and he presented none of those basic saber targets humanoid Jedi did. In essence, Obi-Wan's style of combat, whatever it was, was remote controlled.

Still, speed and manoeuvrability was an issue. Force levitation wasn't easy thing to accomplish and it took great deal if concentration. If he lost focus, his saber would just drop to the floor.

"Practice," Yoda said. "Learn to levitate things without effort you must. Much practice it will take. Once hold your saber you can without dropping it, then a style we consider will."

"Yes, Master Yoda," Obi-Wan sighed, and Force lifted the training saber off the floor again.

-

"You got something stuck on the back of your head, Flakey-One. Might be your brains, leaking out. If you even have them."

Obi-Wan flashed a toothy grimace at Bruck, leaning a bit closer to Garen. "What is it?"

Garen leaned in to look, reaching out to take it off. "Looks like a feath -"

"Ow - ouch - Garen what are you -"

"Hey, it's stuck to your skin! Obi-Wan I think you're growing feathers!"

"What - let me see," Bant said and soon everyone were looking and tugging at the feather or whatever it was.

"Oh come on guys," Obi-Wan groaned. "I can't even see it."

"It's so little!" Bant giggled and Obi-Wan whirled around. She grinned at him. "You're going to have a feather crest! I bet its going to be so pretty."

Pretty?! Obi-Wan hissed at her in outrage and then slithered away. Pretty indeed!

-

The first few times it happened it was passed for a coincidence. Obi-Wan was growing fast, after all, and two meter snake was a bit more terrifying than a little meter length one. But when even Obi-Wan's closest friends, people who had never truly feared him, passed out, it was taken a little more seriously.

"I don't know, Master," Bant said when questioned. "We were just talking and I started to feel really dizzy and then I woke up at the medwing."

"Myths there are on Stewjon about snakes with deadly gazes," Yoda mused. "Little credit I gave them. Wonder now I do…"

There were tests and experiments and when it was proven that a prolonged eye contact with Obi-Wan could knock out even a Master, steps were taken. Though no one could quite figure out how it happened, no one wanted to take risks. Should the gaze develop from stunning to lethal…

Obi-Wan squirmed a bit, trying to get used to the tinted goggles he had on. "I have to wear these all the time?"

"Until another solution is found. It is necessary it is to protect those around you."

First shedding and feathers and goggles. The whole growing thing was not agreeing with Obi-Wan at all

-

Her name was Aizl and she was beautiful. She was an Arconian Jedi, a Padawan four years older than Obi-Wan. Her scaleless skin was the colour of early morning in Coruscant and her eyes glittered like fresh leaves covered in dew as morning light shone on them.

"Ugh. Reptiles," was Garen's pronouncement, aimed more at Obi-Wan than Aizl. "You know, I'm not even sure you guys are in any way compatible."

"Probably aren't but that won't stop me from admiring true beauty," Obi-Wan answered. It wasn't as if he was even interested in things like physical compatibility. If the Stewjon legends were to be trusted, he'd hatched from a chicken egg. His species as it was didn't procreate according to legends.

If it did though… He'd bet Aizl's eggs would have been beautiful.

"Yuck," Garen grumbled.

"Now you know how I feel when ever you speak of mammary glands," Obi-Wan said dryly.

-

The first time Qui-Gon saw Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn't during the exhibition duel Yoda arranged for Qui-Gon's benefit. It was over ten years earlier, when Qui-Gon heard about the serpent.

Like everyone else, he too had to see to believe. A non humanoid Jedi weren't exactly unheard of, but they were rare - and a snake was certainly something new.

It was during mealtime that he spotted the serpent - and considering the fact that Obi-Wan was a carnivorous snake, it was perhaps not the best first impression to get.

Especially since at that time, Obi-Wan had yet to acclimate his stomach to cooked food.

"Good grief, they can't be serious with that beast," Xanatos murmured beside him as the snake unhinged his jaw to devour the chunk of still bloody meat that was bigger than his head. "It can never be a Jedi."

"I'm sure the Council knows what they're doing," Qui-Gon answered, if somewhat dubiously. He was sure that if the snake was Force sensitive and intelligent then he could master a number of Jedi arts… but how could a being without any sort of prehensile appendages wield a lightsaber?

Who ever would take the serpent on as their Padawan learner would have a task and a half in their hands.

-

The basics of Obi-Wan's style of lightsaber combat were avoidance and distraction. He still couldn't move his saber as fast as a normally welding duellist, couldn't quite keep up with them. So he stayed constantly in motion, keeping as much distance between his opponent and himself as he could, almost avoiding the fight while his lightsaber fought almost independent from him.

It made a very poor showing in exhibition duel.

"While it is understandable that you would by necessity develop an unorthodox style…" Qui-Gon Jinn shook his head. "I do not think I could help you develop it. Training you would be -"

"What - too difficult?" Obi-Wan asked bitterly. "I learned to manipulate the Force, I learned to use it as my hands, to interact with it and through it! And that's still not enough, just because I'm not humanoid."

"The Force is not a tool to merely use," Qui-Gon said severely.

"Then why does it let me use it - why does it answer my call?" Obi-Wan asked flatly and turned to leave. "You call a task too difficult to do and then refuse to try. If I'd done the same at any point of my training, I never would've gotten anywhere. Good day, Master Jinn."

"How very ferocious you are," Jinn murmured behind him. "And how very certain of my rejection."

-

"It's a prodigious challenge," Master Dooku commented neutrally, as he and his old Padawan watched Obi-Wan Kenobi go through number of saber katas - all of them modified for his particular style.

"Obi-Wan is more than a challenge," Qui-Gon answered, folding his arms. "Training him is going to be a privilege."

Dooku glanced at him, not sure if to be amused or not. Qui-Gon wasn't quite defensive about the serpent, but he did have that look in his eyes - the one that dared Dooku to offer any unsolicited criticism. Already Qui-Gon was ready to fight for the serpent.

"Have you given any consideration to the direction you will take his training?" Dooku asked, still neural. "With him you can't attend to as many diplomatic missions as you usually do, after all."

"I don't see why I couldn't. A Jedi's work is increasingly diplomatic one these days. The experience will serve Obi-Wan well in the future."

Dooku smothered a laugh at the defiance of it, knowing that he might've very well set the course for this strange Master-Padawan pair by telling Qui-Gon what he couldn't do. Always contrary, Qui-Gon would do - and probably succeed - just to spite the implied suggestion.

"Well if nothing else, he has a very dedicated Master," Dooku mused.

-

"Well it's a bit snug…"

Qui-Gon looked away, trying not to laugh out loud. There was a sentient, squirming bag beside him, rocking from side to side and occasionally tumbling over to its side as its contents tried to find a comfortable position.

The blunt tip of Obi-Wan snout peeked out of the sleeping bag's opening, red tongue flashing out. "Master?"

Quick composing himself, Qui-Gon turned to face him. "Yes, my young Padawan?"

"…It's very warm and I'm very grateful that the locals were nice enough to provide this… thing for me. I wouldn't want to seem ungrateful."

"But?"

"… but I think I'm stuck. "

-

Obi-Wan rubbed himself irritably against the table leg. "Come on already. Come off…"

His master had left him alone in their quarters to deal with the latest bout of shedding. The skin had cracked somewhere near the middle and now there were bits of it everywhere - worst of them still sticking to Obi-Wan's new skin. And they refused to come off.

The door opened and Obi-Wan reared his head, opening his mouth to ask his Master for a hand. It wasn't his Master though - but someone from the cleaning staff who took one look at the room, covered in bits of snakeskin, and screamed.

Yeah. Obi-Wan absolutely loved shedding.

-

"This is worst, this is the absolute worst!"

"Come now, Padawan. It isn't nearly as bad as all that."

"Easy for you to say, Master. You're not the one shedding monthly! You humans have it so easy."

"You should never say that near a human female"

"Why not?"

"I'd hate to lose my Padawan so early in his training, that's all."

-

"Obi-Wan, where did the bird go?"

"What bird, Master? I saw no bird."

"Don't even try it. The bird was just here and now it isn't, and I'd like an explanation."

"Perhaps it simply wandered off."

"Obi-Wan, this is beneath you."

"I'm lying on my belly on the floor, very little is beneath me, Master."

"Obi-Wan…"

"… it was an evil bird."

"Force give me strength…"

-

It was the sound that did it. Though Obi-Wan was technically a snake, he had very sensitive hearing and the cry of the blasted bird tore through his head even after Qui-Gon killed it.

"Obi-Wan," his Master murmured, coming to his side where he fell. "You're bleeding."

"Told you," Obi-Wan croaked through the ringing in his head. "Those birds are evil."

-

At fifteen Obi-Wan was already close to ten meters in length, and about the same width as a human child of the same age. It presented some interesting changes.

People were a little less likely to mistake him for Qui-Gon's peculiar, exotic pet for one. Instead they were little more inclined towards silent horrified staring. And while Obi-Wan certainly seemed to enjoy this newfound respect - "They don't think I'm clever talking snake anymore, Master!" - Qui-Gon could've done without the side effects.

"Please, Governor, believe me there is no need for blasters. Obi-Wan is neither a man eater nor a monster and he will harm no one here!"

"And I'm most certainly not tame!" Obi-Wan almost sputtered, which for him meant quite a bit of hissing and flashing of fangs. "I'm a sentient being and in need of no more taming than are you!"

Which didn't help matters much. As the governor squeaked in outrage about Obi-Wan not even being tame, Qui-Gon sighed and wondered if diplomacy was really the right path to pursue with his Padawan's training.

-

"But what does he eat?!" Was perhaps the most common question people had concerning Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon usually had to refrain from saying "Anything that's put in front of him."

Obi-Wan was what he was though - a giant carnivore growing sometimes quarter of a meter in length per year. He ate whenever there was food to be had and wasn't particularly picky about what he ate either. So as long as meat was on the menu, Obi-Wan was all for it.

"Anything you can spare," Qui-Gon said and then quickly rectified, "anything non sentient."

The number of people trying feed other people to Obi-Wan was high enough as it was without him adding to it.

-

Obi-Wan watched the delegation with interest. They were from the same planet where his egg had come, and he was naturally curious. The people weren't serpentine at all, though - they were humans.

"So there really aren't other beings like me?" He asked, a little sad. A Jedi was meant to have no attachments and yet he wouldn't have minded meeting another like him - if not for any other reason, then to find out the name of his species.

"I suppose we can ask them later, once there is time. For now have some patience, my young Padawan, " Qui-Gon said. "Our duties must come first."

He did find out the name, though. The moment the Stewjon delegates spotted him, they put up such a howl you would've thought they'd seen a monster.

"A Basilisk! They have a Basilisk!"

And then they pulled blasters on Obi-Wan.

It wasn't a very comforting start for a peace summit.

-

The assailants were well prepared. As Qui-Gon went down, paralysed by the dart that struck his neck, they went after Obi-Wan with metal nets, smothering his sinuous body under their weight. Judging by the sound Obi-Wan made, he too was struck by paralysing agent.

"Mighty Jedi monster," their captors sneered, striking Obi-Wan's side with an electric rod. Under paralysis, Obi-Wan didn't even shudder - but he hissed furiously. "Unbeatable, they said. Hah!"

And then the assailants made to remove Obi-Wan's goggles - and though Qui-Gon could've tried to say something… he didn't. Not when he could smell his student's skin, burning under the electric charge.

The first assailant went down like a sack of rocks, followed by those near by. Obi-Wan closed his eyes then, only to open them again in pain when he was struck again.

"What did you do?! Look at me, you monster! What did you do?!" were the last words of the last thug there, before in misguided attempt to torture answers out of Obi-Wan, he forced his eyelids open.

It wasn't until the paralysis wore off that the two Jedi found that with age Obi-Wan's gaze had indeed grown more potent - from stunning to lethal.

-

It was much easier when Obi-Wan was younger - and quite bit smaller. Early in his and Qui-Gon's partnership he could often times just curl under a table or even on a humanoid seat and that was fine.

But as he grew older, he also grew in length and suddenly he could no longer fit in a chair and some part of him would always be in someone's way. And that was before he started to put on weight.

At thirteen he only weighed little over hundred kilograms, easy enough for a spaceship to handle. At fifteen he weighed double that and at twenty double that! If it kept up, and it looked like it might -he'd weigh well over three tons by the time he was thirty!

"We'll… take the cargo hauler," Qui-Gon decided, looking over a list of departing ships.

Obi-Wan sighed, hanging his head. He was going to miss fitting into crew quarters.

At this rate, he was going to miss fitting in spaceships in general.

-

"Oh. Oh my. Oh my goodness. What in the galaxy is -?"

"Hm? Oh that is Padawan Kenobi, one of our more promising senior Padawans. Looks like he and his Master are just back from a mission."

"I… indeed? It - he - is a Jedi?"

"Yes, he is. A very capable one, I assure you."

"I… can only imagine. It must be very… difficult. And… tricky training some one like him."

"Every student presents their own set of challenges. I can introduce you if you're curious about his training."

"No, no. I'm sure we don't have the time to indulge my curiosities. Perhaps a later time."

"As you wish, Senator Palpatine."

"Yes… a later time."

-

"Well… I was right about the pathetic part," Obi-Wan mused, as the so called local fainted dead amongst the crushed foliage.

"What was that, Obi-Wan?" his Master asked, checking that the gangly thing hadn't died.

"I was only wondering if you had picked up a yet another pathetic life form, Master."

Qui-Gon gave him a very unimpressed look. "And here I had hoped you would've learned some respect by now, Padawan. Just for that, you can carry him."

"I say it with fondness. It's a term of endearment!"

"Sure it is."

**-**

"And this is your…"

"Student. My Padawan learner, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I assure you, he is very capable."

Obi-Wan resigned himself for the doubt, suspicion and amused dismissal. He was fifteen meters in length, wider than Qui-Gon by some measure, but that didn't seem to help him any where intelligence and sentience were concerned.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," the Queen said thoughtfully. "The same Obi-Wan Kenobi from the Suetasa Peace Summit, eight years ago?"

"Ah, yes, your majesty," Obi-Wan more winced than admitted.

"Your address to the Stewjon was quite the piece."

Well it had to be - the Stewjon had wanted to chop him up and make potions out of him. But Obi-Wan said nothing about that - merely thanked the queen.

Though it was nice to be recognised for something he'd done for once.

-

"What are you doing, Padawan Kenobi?" Captain Panaka asked, voice full of disapproval.

"I'm scanning the surrounding area to make sure we're safe here," Obi-Wan answered.

"Scanning."

"Yes. With my senses. They stretch out farther than my sight, so it's more effective method of keeping watch."

"And you can't do this sensing from inside the ship?"

"There is quite bit of interference."

"Uhhuh. And the stretching about on your back business, that's absolutely necessary? And you're not in any way sunbathing?"

"Maximum coverage, Captain."

"Riight."

-

Anakin stared wide eyed as enormous snake slithered in through the near by door. It was huge and beige and had a crown of golden feathers which lifted slightly as the snake saw Qui-Gon and it was wearing red tinted goggles and it was huge!

"Are you alright, Master?" the giant snake asked.

"Fine, just fine," Qui-Gon said, taking support of the huge snake's coil to stand up. "Anakin Skywalker, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi, my student."

"No way, " Anakin breathed. "You're a Jedi too?"

"Well. Yes," the giant snake said warily, the crest of feathers flattening slightly.

"Wizard," Anakin breathed. First an angel and then he was freed and now a giant Jedi snake!

Best week ever!

-

"So how do you use a lightsaber? Can you change shapes?"

"No I can't change shapes - I'm a Basilisk day in and day out."

"Basilisk is the name of your species? Are there lot of you?"

"As far as we know, I'm the only one."

"Oh. That's sad. Are you lonely?"

"Not particularly."

"But you're like the last of your kind!"

"I doubt I'm the last one there will ever be and I'm not the only Jedi."

"So being a Jedi trumps being a basilisk?"

"For me, yes."

"Huh. The basilisk bit is a lot more obvious you know."

"Oh, I know."

"… so do you eat people?"

"Anakin!"

-

Over a dozen years under Qui-Gon's careful tutelage had brought Obi-Wan's skills with a lightsaber up to a respectable level. He could keep up and even beat his Master on occasion and he'd learned to take full advantage of his strange style, utilising his high talent with Force levitation when ever opportunity rose.

His growing talents and the sheer strangeness of his way of utilizing a lightsaber often gave him an edge in a fight - no one expected a flying lightsaber from a fifteen meter monster of some thousand kilos, after all.

And yet against the Sith, he was next to useless. The Zabrak completely out manoeuvred him and Qui-Gon both, leading them down to the Naboo plasma refinery where, on the catwalks, he used the terrain against Obi-Wan with insidious skill.

For all the things Obi-Wan could do now… jumping wasn't one of them. And though he could use a lightsaber at increasing range, even that had its limits - and if Obi-Wan couldn't see the fight, there was no safe way for him to engage in it. Not without risking his Master.

Against the ancient enemy of the Jedi, Obi-Wan was useless.

-

Obi-Wan was trapped behind the laser walls, helpless and unable to even try passing through them as they rotated open and shut, when Qui-Gon fell.

He felt it in the Force, echo of pain and horror and realisation - twisting sensation of vital organs dying and… then acceptance.

When the Sith stepped back in view, Obi-Wan roared for the first time in his life. It echoed like crash of thunder against the walls and the damn Sith grinned at him. The laser walls begun clicking open and the Sith started walking towards him, saber at ready. He looked almost casual about it.

And Obi-Wan knew he wasn't match for this damn monster. He wouldn't be able to keep up - not here, on the catwalks. The Sith would outmanoeuvre him like before. Qui-Gon would die without getting justice.

No.

They laser wall clicked open in front of Obi-Wan, his view of the Sith was unhindered; nothing in between.

Obi-Wan called for the Force, and then…

He tore his tinted goggles off.

-

Obi-Wan was all wrapped up when Anakin found him. He'd seen the Basilisk Jedi coiled up before - it was Obi-Wan's version of sitting down, coiling the length of his body into a spool. It was how he slept too. But this was different. Obi-Wan was hiding his head somewhere under his coils.

"I'm sorry about Qui-Gon," the boy offered.

The coils shifted slightly and Obi-Wan rested his head heavily on the topmost one. "Anakin," he rasped.

"Are you okay?" Anakin asked, sympathetic.

Obi-Wan sighed and ducked his head back under. "I need to meditate."

Anakin frowned. Meditate? Now? "Does that help?"

"…sometimes."

"Can I join you?"

Obi-Wan didn't say anything - which Anakin took for a yes. Steeling himself, he chambered up Obi-Wan's coils, ignoring the Jedi's surprised start, and then stumbled over and into the basket of Basilisk coils Obi-Wan formed with his body.

"Anakin, you -"

"Come on," the boy said, ignoring him and making himself comfortable. "Let's meditate."

They didn't, though.

-

"So I understand you're the one we have to thank for taking care of the dark assassin that was after the Queen?"

"My master played a key role in that, Chancellor Palpatine. Without him we never would have made it to Coruscant."

"Of course, Master Jinn's contribution will be well remembered. But it was you, Knight Kenobi, who dealt the killing blow. It's what you were knighted for, is it not?"

"I suppose so, Chancellor."

"Pardon me, Knight Kenobi, if this seems insensitive, but I am curious. See, I have seen the autopsy reports and there wasn't a mark on the body. How did you kill him? I have heard of the powers of the Force if course but… Was it some sort of Jedi art?"

"… no it wasn't - and pardon me, Chancellor, but that is all I can say about the matter. Please excuse me - I must attend to my Padawan."

"…how very interesting."

-

Qui-Gon's death opened Obi-Wan's eyes to the limitations of his abilities as well as his form. Had it came down to a lightsaber battle, he never would've been able to defeat the Sith.

There was little he could do about his body - he could neither make it more versatile nor could he stop it from growing. Only thing he could do something about was his Force abilities.

So while Anakin begun attending to the initiate lessons, Obi-Wan turned his attention inward and past himself into the Force not just around him… but within him. And there he discovered something not entirely comforting.

His Force was proportional to his body. And it increased with him.

"My capacity to manipulate the Force is beyond my ability to actually do so," Obi-Wan admitted ruefully. "Please, Master, teach me."

"A Padawan you are no longer, Obi-Wan. A Knight you are. And a master to an apprentice," Yoda commented.

"Not much of a master, when I haven't even mastered myself yet."

Yoda nodded slowly. "And that the reason is why to you Anakin Skywalker was given. Aware of your shortcomings you are and still learning. Yet still your master I am not."

"Please. My first Master you were."

"… tender hearted I am to fall for such cheap tricks. Fine! For travel prepare. To Ilum I will get us a ship."

"Ilum?"

"New lightsabers you need."

"But I have a - wait, lightsabers? In plural?!"

-

"Anakin, I can see you, you know."

"What? No you can't. You're not even facing the right way. And your eyes are shut. And you're pretty much blindfolded!"

"Which makes your attempt at stealth so much sadder, doesn't it? Now where you think you're going?"

"… the fresher?"

"You're going the wrong way then. It's behind you."

"Oh come on, you can't tell which way I'm facing!"

"Back to bed, Anakin. And next time you try to sneak off, not step on my tail on your way."

"Goddamnit."

"Language."

"Pardon my, Master. Forcedamnit."

-

"You must be joking. No one can do that!"

Yoda waved his gimer stick threateningly. "Youngling you still are to speak so, Knight Kenobi. Know everything you do not. Abilities you have never heard of there are. Learn you will!"

With that said, the little Master took a breath, closed his eyes and concentrated. It took a moment before the Force surged around Yoda and then… he begun to hover.

"Not so different from levitating other objects," Yoda said. "More difficult, yes, yes. But not impossible."

Obi-Wan stared at him. "I… it's very impressive. But I'm not sure what couple of inches of lift will do for me," he said slowly.

In answer Yoda flew up to his eye level and whacked him across the nose.

-

They talk about it precisely once and later Obi-Wan knew that the message fell on utterly deaf ears.

"Oh come on Master - what would you even know about it? You're a reptile. It's different for mammals."

It wasn't intentionally hurtful, and Anakin was right enough. Obi-Wan didn't share those raging hormones and chemicals that seemed to move rest of the galaxy to mate. Lot of those sorts of interactions were completely alien to him.

But he wasn't an idiot either.

Problem was… being with Padme made Anakin happy. And as the Clone Wars truly started, there was precious little to be happy about. Jedi mortality rate was only surpassed by the mortality rate of the clones.

Surely as long as they were smart about it… it couldn't hurt anybody.

Still Obi-Wan dearly wished Anakin showered a bit more thoroughly after seeing her. He wasn't the only Jedi in the Order with keen sense of smell.

-

"Now, you've been assigned to General Kenobi," General Windu said. "You'll be his second in command unless he decides otherwise. Do you know anything about Kenobi?"

"Only that he's General Skywalker's former Master and that he was one of the key figures in the Battle of Geonosis, sir," Cody answered.

"Kenobi is a… special sort of Jedi," Windu said, somewhat evasively. "His species is somewhat large and… predatory. And it makes some things complicated."

"I'm certain I can handle it, sir," Cody assured and then had to restrain himself from reaching for a blaster.

A serpentine monster just slithered into the corridor, its eyes covered with goggles, its head and jaw adorned with gold and auburn feathers. Maybe twenty meters in length it was easily big enough to swallow a man whole.

"Obi-Wan. How do you like your ship?" General Windu asked.

"I can actually fit on the corridors so its quite a bit ahead of anything else I've ever flown on," the giant snake answered, raising his head.

"Though you might like that," Windu said and motioned at Cody. "This is CC-2224. I'm assigning him to you as your second in command."

"I haven't yet been given troops," the snake commented. "Why the special assignment?"

"You're a special case, " Windu said dryly.

"So I am," the snake - who was apparently General Kenobi - agreed, wry. "Well, then, marshal. Come along."

Swallowing dryly, Cody moved to follow the - the General.

This was going to be interesting assignment.

-

Obi-Wan was one of the first Generals to be assigned his own ship. It was one of the new Star Destroyers - a Jedi Cruiser as it was later nicknamed. And it was by far Obi-Wan's favourite spaceship.

Not that he'd ever say that out loud.

He'd never much cared for flying and he'd liked it even less after he'd gotten too big to fit anywhere but the cargo holds on freight ships. Spaceflight was uncomfortable undignified business and he'd rather go without it.

The Star Destroyer had room to stretch though. It was even equipped with extra large landing shuttles. He could actually fit in them.

Now if only the crew stopped being so skittish.

"Honestly with the way they're going on about you'd think I'm going to eat them all," Obi-Wan muttered.

"Give it time," Anakin offered. "Once they see that you hardly ever eat anybody, they'll loosen up."

And of course he just had to say it where the troopers could hear it.

-

The thing was, General Kenobi just didn't translate that well onto hologram. It skewed Rex's perspective of the Jedi and not the right way. Because the hologram left him believing that the General was maybe four meters at most.

Judging by the ram rod straight spines all around, he wasn't the only one who'd been misled by the wonders of modern technology

"Is everyone here?" General Kenobi asked, looming over all of them, colossal and more than slightly terrifying. "Then I shall begin the mission briefing."

Rex stared a while and then leaned to his General. "That's who trained you, sir? I'm starting to see why nothing fazes you."

"You should see him when he's shedding," General Skywalker answered, deadpan.


	4. Fountain of Force (FF7 crossover)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Qui-Gon Jinn comes from Gaia
> 
> Written back in 2015,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are buncha typos I am too lazy to try and find.

 

When Qui-Gon was finally knighted and given the possibility of visiting his home planet as a fully fledged Jedi knight and truly see where he comes from, he contemplated on it long and hard. He knew a lot of Jedi Knights kept in touch with their origins, honouring their roots with symbols and traditions. His own master even played a part in his home world's politics, and in Serenno he was known first as a Count and secondly as a Jedi Master.

"For some our roots give us security and stability, for some they give balance. And some see them as distractions and as unnecessary, even harmful attachment," Master Dooku said, when the choice of returning home had been presented to Qui-Gon. "In the end, there is no shame in embracing your origins – just as there is no shame in distancing yourself from it. Both choices have their benefit – and the choice is one only you can make for yourself."

"How do you see it, Master – if you don't mind me asking such a personal question?" Qui-Gon asked.

Master Dooku looked as if he thought it better not to answer – but he did, in the end. "I think there is a limit to how far we should distance ourselves from the… normal life of the galaxy. With distance comes detachment, with detachment comes ignorance and indifference," he said slowly. "I think there should be some connection to what we seek to defend. Don't you?"

Qui-Gon asked the same question from another master – one who had never sought to return to his home planet.

"I will not say that there are no benefits to such things," Sifo-dyas said. "Your Master has gained great wisdom from his forays to his home planet, and there is no denying that among the Jedi Master Dooku is best learned in the art of politics, largely thanks to his keen interest on Serenno. However, one should be cautious of such ties. The Jedi are, above all else, neutral in the matters of the galaxy. On personal level as well as political. Attachment can lead to many things – bias, first of all."

Of course Qui-Gon could refrain now, and visit his world of birth later, once he'd gained some wisdom and maturity – once he had settled into the mantle of a Knight and found stability in this new role. There were trials yet to come – he'd soon be learning how to conduct his own missions, alone, without his Master there to rely on. Those trials would teach him, he would grow, and then… visiting his home planet would not be a trial, but a pleasure he could enjoy and then distance himself from.

And yet there was a very real possibility he might never have that opportunity. Jedi's life was many things – secure was not one of them. Nor was it safe. He might very well be dead within the year.

He meditated on it, eventually seeking not his heart's answer, but that of the Force. It was a decision he should make for himself, and yet that felt un-Jedi like in and of itself. So he released his question to the Force and waited for its answer.

He took the first transport going the right way the following day.

 

2.

 

Gaia wasn't actually a planet – it was a dwarf planet, smaller than many moons. With large oceans and somewhat shredded land masses, it wasn't very thickly populated and being a mid-rim world – only few parsecs away from being an outer-rim world – it wasn't particularly busy as far as travel went. At a distance it looked rather unremarkable.

Qui-Gon studied Gaia's history as he approached the planet, and found it to be somewhat scattered. Its original inhabitants, the Cetra, were long extinct and there were barely any records of them in the Jedi Archives, never mind the Holonet. They'd been largely force sensitive, but somewhat isolationistic. Not hostile or violent, merely… aloof and skittish, the records said if not in those words exactly. Not that it mattered. They'd vanished from the face of Gaia thousands of years ago.

Humans, as far as anyone knew, had been living on the planet for at least five thousand – possibly as much as six thousand – years, though the records couldn't say where the human settlers had originally came from. They were the dominant – and largely the _only_ – species living on Gaia. And they hadn't been particularly kind to the dwarf planet originally – nearly turning it completely inhabitable with their early industry and ways of power production. Pollution, Qui-Gon mused.

His own records told him that he'd been a lucky find on Gaia. A pair of Jedi Knights had stopped by on their way to an assignment, and they had sensed him – still only an infant – and brought him into the Temple's attention. Proper representatives had been sent to speak with his family and the result of those discussions had been Qui-Gon's admittance into the temple.

He was one of the renamed ones. His birth family had taken heed of the talk of detachment and… they'd detached themselves from him. Qui-Gon's original name had been wiped, and a new one had been given to him in the Temple. Whatever he had been called originally, it had never been entered into the Temple's systems, as per to his parents' request. And, as per the Temple's way in such cases, his parents were never told what his new name was.

Neither he nor his family would know each other, if they ever happened to come face to face.

Just as well. Qui-Gon wasn't sure what he would've done with a family, if he still had one on Gaia. Master Dooku might find his roots comforting and securing, but Qui-Gon wasn't sure if he'd find them to be so. All in all, the idea of being tied to a place, even by such a meaningful and yet feeble bond… it did not know how well he liked it.

The transport made it towards Gaia and Qui-Gon meditated quietly on the security of having a home – and the freedom in being able to leave such a place behind.

 

3.

 

Qui-Gon had always been strong in the Living Force – it was one of the things no one had ever needed to teach him. Sensing life and living things came naturally to him, he was handy with healing even without having ever been given any sort of specialised training, and should he need to, he could've easily taken the task of a Jedi Agriculturist. He could've taken the task of _several_ Jedi Agriculturists, in fact.

As much as Padawans and Initiates looked down on it, the Jedi Service Corps produced their own Masters, ones that grew and healed and nurtured, who paved the way and made worlds safe in that fundamental level that had nothing to do with diplomacy and all to do with simple ability to _survive_. In their quiet, unceremonious ways, they saved more worlds than any Jedi Knight could. And even early on his teachers in the Temple had known what an assert Qui-Gon could've been in those understated but essential fields.

It was only the sheer strength and his skills with a sabre and diplomacy that made him a Knight instead. That, and Qui-Gon was secretly suspicious that Master Dooku might've had his eyes on him from since he was eight.

Qui-Gon had tried to never flaunt his abilities or strength with the Living Force – but he had wondered at it. Though skill in its use and application took years, the strength he had since the beginning – and it was a strength that many simply did not have. Even the Masters of Healing in the Temple had to learn and practice and _grow_ in abilities and strength before they reached what he possessed naturally. It was, at times, somewhat overwhelming.

The moment he set a foot on Gaia's soil, however, he understood.

 

4.

 

It took him a while to find a balance on Gaia's soil. The world was _alive_ with the Living Force – it flowed in currents in the dwarf planet's crust and whirled under his feet and it was in _everything_ on the planet. It was in the plants, in the animals – and in the people. It felt as if every bit of Gaia was in some degree Force Sensitive – and sensitive to the Living Force especially.

"Welcome to Costa Del Sol," the cheerful, tanned customs people in the space port greeted him. "We dearly hope you will enjoy your stay."

Costa Del Sol was one of the biggest cities on the little dwarf world, stretching across the sunbathed coast line of the Middling Sea. Qui-Gon took the city in slowly, appreciating the architecture of the place. There was agedness to it, some of the buildings were hundreds of years old, and the people of the city had obviously made an effort not to disturb the landscape of the city with modern technology.

Qui-Gon took his time, playing the part of a tourist happily. While it was not the first time he'd done such things, it was the first time he had toured a place at leisure and without the urgency of a mission pressing down on him. It was a new and not wholly unpleasant experience.

In Costa Del Sol, he tanned several degrees and learned of Chocobos and Chocobo Racing and eventually found that if he wanted to learn more about the world, he was in very much the wrong place.

"You want to study history, you need to go to Kalm," the librarian of the lone and largely disused library of Costa Del Sol told him. "Either that or Wutai. Kalm's a better bet though – the university there is where all the old records are kept these days. Pre-ShinRa and such, stuff no one else has anymore."

So, after enjoying some more time in the sun, Qui-Gon found a transport to take him to the eastern continent. The pilot of the vehicle – a somewhat historic piece the crew called an _airship_ which did mostly scenic and novelty tours – let him wander around the vehicle freely, even go out side onto the _deck_ where he could feel the wind and watch the waves pass by below them.

On its way to Kalm, the ship passed over the ruins of an ancient looking technological city. A river ran to the sea from it – iridescent and glowing in the sunlight.

"If you ever go that way," the pilot of the airship said. "You got to visit River of Light. There's nothing like it."

 

5.

 

Not many knew much about the Ruin City only that its original name had been Midgar and that it belonged to the ShinRa period. Very little information was left from that time, though – it was part of Gaia's darker history, being the age when the human settlers of Gaia had very nearly poisoned the world with their industry.

As far as anyone knew, ShinRa – an organisation or a government, no one knew for sure – had eventually collapsed in on itself. There were theories of natural disasters and possible wars, but though there were records of a War between the islands of Wutai and ShinRa, no one really knew for sure. It had taken the world a long time to bounce back from ShinRa's fall in either case.

It was only after the Republic had managed to re-establish contact with Gaia – after nearly three thousand years of the planet having been off limit and considered hostile – that the planet truly begun to recover. With the contact came the access to better technologies and wider range of knowledge – as well as trade. It had eventually brought the little world back to its feet and though Gaia couldn't be called influential or powerful, it was steadily growing.

Qui-Gon studied the history for a while until he had the general idea of how things had progressed. The most curious thing about Gaia's history was the large gaps it had, but if ShinRa had been as tyrannical as it seemed, it explained things. Tyrannical governments had the habit of destroying knowledge to keep the population contained – to keep them from advancing or getting new ideas. It was a shame, but there was little one could do about it.

So Qui-Gon turned to studying other things about this planet he'd been born on. Like the River of Light that many people had already told him to visit.

 

6.

 

The River of Light was a natural fountain that had been formed in the Ruin City. How it had formed was under severe debate and had been for _centuries_. Most said it was due to some sort of cataclysmic event that had cracked open some reservoir of ground water. Others said it had been artificially created to supply the Ruin City with water, and had then simply ran loose, when the city had fallen into ruin.

Others said that the Goddess Aeris had formed it from the dew that clung onto the petals of the White Lilies – which, Qui-Gon found, grew all over the Ruin City.

His visit to the place was a tour, a carefully guided and monitored one with up to fifty participants, all of them oohing and aahing over the ruins and the flowers and, of course, the River of Light itself.

The river begun from a fountain in the circular ruins of the city. According to the tour guide, it had begun as a small pond – now it was a lake, that had poured over most of the lower ruins, flooding them utterly. It was a very serene and very surreal place – with bits of rubble and crumbling structures sticking out from the still water, tufts of White Lilies growing where ever the ruins breached the surface. With vines hanging down from the ruins above, the visual the Ruin City and its lake presented was stunning.

Oddly, there were no creatures aside from occasional insects that fluttered about the White Lilies. There was no fish in the odd lake, and though Qui-Gon had observed avians with affinity for water, none of them existed in the ruins. It was eerie, for the place to be so void of life – with it all but _radiated_ with the Living Force.

The Fountain of Aeris it was called and judging by the reactions people had to it, it was a considered a holy place. Qui-Gon watched the people pray at the crumbling shores of the lake and mused about the deities of his home world, of which he knew so very little despite having been born there.

But though the lake was mesmerising, the River of Light that ran from it was most certainly worth its name. It coursed with liveliness that utterly belied the serene lake, in sparkling rapids and sprays of water that splashed every which way. The life that sat still in the lake _flowed_ in the river, and it really did seem to glow with its own, inner power. The animals that were absent in the lake were present in the river and they made it full, and whole.

"The healing properties of the River of Light have been scientifically proven," the tour guide told them, while under the severe gazes of the security guards, the tourists dipped small cups in the lake. Some of them drank it right away – others poured the water into bottles, intending to take it to sick friends and relatives, probably.

Qui-Gon took a cup, and went to get his share as well, curious as to how it would taste, what it being all but infused with Living Force.

And as it did, something caught his eye.

 

7.

 

There was a very popular classic vid on Gaia about a swordsman and a band of warriors, saving the world from an evil corporation. It had been remade no less than fourteen times, and accordion to the Holonet, the Gold Saucer Productions were making yet another remake of the story. It turned out Gaia had had a very popular theatre and movie culture in its history – and for some reason, the story of seven – or in some cases eight – warriors saving the planet from an organisation was a very popular story. All in all, the story seemed to be part of the essential _Gaia-experience_.

Qui-Gon watched it with some amusement, idly turning the stone he'd taken from the River of Light in his hand. He'd selected the most popular version of it and it wasn't even a holovid, but an old fashioned two dimensional moving image. It was very entertaining if nothing else.

So far, Gaia had been a very amiable experience. Granted, he'd gone out his way to be as unobtrusive as possible, and it seemed people here were so unadjusted to Jedi that he barely had to shift his clothes to hide his occupation. As it was, the people of Gaia were largely peaceful sort. If Qui-Gon didn't know how human populations tended to work, he would've thought they'd simply expended their share of violence in their history and had simply moved on from it.

Gaia was… a strange world. It didn't have much in way of centralised government, and the people liked it that way. Towns and villages managed their own business and the only leader they had were the Elders stationed in Cosmo Canyon, who managed Gaia's larger issues. There was no army aside from the traditional warriors of Wutai and some random practitioners hand to hand combat skills who did it more as an art than as something that was truly necessary. People did carry weapons on Gaia – they _all_ carried weapons – but that was mostly due to the violent fauna present on the planet.

And everything on the planet was completely infused with the Living Force. Everything from things that lived to things that didn't. it coursed through the whole world, untamed and wild and free.

How Gaia didn't produce Force Sensitives in the dozens each year, Qui-Gon had no idea. Perhaps it did and nobody knew because nobody actually skilled enough at sensing them was around to notice.

He turned the black river stone in his hand idly. Even _it_ was Force Sensitive. A Force Sensitive _rock_. He'd never heard of such thing, and yet there it was, a polished stone the colour of ebony wood, reacting to his Force Presence. If Qui-Gon channelled Force _into_ the rock, it would actually heat up.

He'd already burned his hand once on the thing, though, so he didn't. Instead he turned it again and again in his fingers before hiding in his pocket and turning back to the vid.

"Let's mosey," the leader of the troupe of warriors said and Qui-Gon smothered a soft snort.

 

8.

 

In the end Qui-Gon decided that he could enjoy and he could leave Gaia behind without any attachment having been formed. The little dwarf planet was a pleasant place with intriguing history and had he had no choice, he knew he could've lived out his life there, exploring the intricacies of the Living Force and the planet's spotty history.

As it was, though, he could leave it and feel no remorse.

For all the studying he had done, he hadn't really managed to pin point any sort of location based ethnicity on himself. The humans of Gaia were varied and spread out, and the only _group_ that was in any way definable were the Wutaians, and he knew for sure he shared no ancestry with them. The rest of the people were a varied bunch and judging by his features and bone structure, Qui-Gon could've been born anywhere from Mideel Islands to the Northern Crater.

All in all, he didn't really even try to find out. Somewhere on the little world, there lived his family. If not his parents then perhaps relatives at least. Perhaps a whole family tree with same blood as him, under a wholly different name, living wholly different lives. They might look like him, some of them might share his height or nose or eyes, but in the end it didn't matter.

His family was the Jedi Order, and he was satisfied with that.

Still, that did not make the experience worthless – far from it. While he had not rooted into Gaia the way Master Dooku had long since rooted into Serenno, he had to admit – he'd found a sort of… peace in the little world. There was an odd… loveliness to Gaia. It felt peaceful and unhurried and like nothing could touch it.

In Gaia he had to admit, he had felt _safe_ not just due to the lack of violence or hostility, but on some deeper level. Perhaps it was some part of his subconscious talking – perhaps somewhere deep in his heart, the child that had been born on this world recognised the Living Force that coursed through it, and felt safe in its embrace. Perhaps it was the adult feeling it.

Whichever it was, he knew he could look back to it fondly and maybe even take solace in the fact that such place existed.

 

9.

 

The only thing Qui-Gon brought with him from Gaia – aside from new experiences and fond memories – was the river stone. He shouldn't have taken it and occasionally he felt a hint of embarrassed guilt over the fact that he had. The River of Light was sacred to the people of Gaia, taking _anything_ but the water from it was considered something of a taboo. The fact that he hadn't been caught in the act didn't make it any less appalling.

But Qui-Gon couldn't bring himself to leave it behind. It was a strange thing, the stone, but he found it's presence in his pocket soothing. Though the bottom of the River of Light had been made of thousands of such stones, all of them just as polished and just as beautiful, he knew this one was special. This one had called for him. Or maybe Force had called him to _it_.

Qui-Gon turned the stone gently in his hand and wondered at it.

Wondered at the thought that came to him now… that he shouldn't _abandon_ it.

 

10.

 

"How did you like your home world?" Master Dooku asked, when Qui-Gon returned to the temple.

"It was very soothing place," Qui-Gon admitted. "I feel… honoured for having visited it. But in the same time, I don't think I will feel any urge to return anytime soon. I can carry the experience with me, and I think that will be enough for me."

Dooku smiled and clasped his shoulder companionably. "You've always been bit of a wanderer, my Padawan, so I can't say it surprises me. I'm glad you found your home world a place you could think fondly of. Many aren't quite so lucky."

No, many weren't. Jedi came from all walks of life and all sorts of worlds, not all of them pleasant or kind. Qui-Gon was lucky. But he had the oddest feeling that he was luckier than most in many other ways, when it came to his home world.

The feel of that Living Force, so strong and so very alive still lingered in him – and maybe it always would. He couldn't think of any other world that could give anyone such a feeling – and he really had to wonder why no other Jedi had ever spoken of Gaia, of the sheer immensity of its Force Presence.

Or maybe it was just him – a child of that world, born in its presence and being made of its materials – that could feel it. It was Gaia and its power that had given Qui-Gon his strength in the Living Force, he was sure of it. Had he been in any other world… maybe he wouldn't have been a Force Sensitive at all.

It was a very strange thought, but somehow it rang true to him.

Ruefully he realised that he might've formed an attachment to his home world after all. It was one that wouldn't require attendance or maintenance, perhaps… but it was one regardless. A sense of belonging and maybe even a hint of pride lived inside him now, glowing somewhere in his chest, quiet and understated but very present.

It felt warm and he could've sworn it was being echoed back to him by the river stone that rested him his breast pocket, next to his heart

It wasn't a bad sensation, he decided.

 

11.

 

The first person who ever saw the river stone – aside from Qui-Gon himself – was Qui-Gon's first Padawan. It was during an extremely tricky mission.

Eneos, a star system with two inhabited planets and four moon colonies, was in the brink of civil war over the scarce resourced present in the system, and none of the _many_ sides of the conflict were willing to back out. The problem was that there was next to no helium in the Eneos system. What little it had had been present in the system's single gas giant, and on going mining operations stretching across centuries, had finally mined the gas giant out.

And the people of Eneos required a very helium rich atmosphere to breathe.

The whole star system was about to choke to death, so it was no wonder that none of the disagreeing sides were willing to share what they had. The Moon colony of E-yras, which sat in the orbit of the now considerably shrunken gas giant, was in possession of the largest quantities of the now precious helium – far more than they needed themselves. They were now stoking the flames of the civil war by pitting everyone else against each other, first by offering to sell to the highest bidder and then by making unhanded deals on the side.

The only reason the rest of the star system hadn't attack E-yras so far was because it, being the wealthiest settlement in the system, had the money to defend itself. A fleet of mercenaries sat in the moon's orbit and they weren't too careful about who they shot down.

Eneos wasn't a wealthy system, in galactic scheme, so it couldn't import helium – definitely not in the quantities it needed. There was no alternate source of the element anywhere near. The system had very few allies, none of whom could lend them a hand.

Somehow Qui-Gon had to come up with a solution to the conflict that kept the system from breaking out into an all out war. Yet no solution readily presented itself. The only future he saw for the system was chaos of civil war and the system's eventual abandonment.

"I know your record with high risk diplomatic missions is high, Master, but I think the Temple is over-estimating your abilities with this one," Feemor commented from where he was browsing the local Holonet for news. He, like Qui-Gon, had a mask over the lower half of his face, supplying him with breathable air in the atmosphere of Ne-eneo. It made his voice a little muffled, but the smile in it was still easily discernible.

Qui-Gon sighed behind his own mask and sat down in the floor of their rented apartment. "I fear you might be right, Padawan," he mused, running a hand over his face and idly scratching at the edge of his mask. He'd rather regretted his decision to start growing a beard just before this mission. The stubble did not go too well with the mask. "I fear this conflict has no easy solution."

The fact that made the whole thing so wretchedly unfortunate was that the people of the Eneos wanted to avoid war at all cost – they'd actually plead the Jedi Order to send a mediator to solve the issue, planets and colonies all banding together to send the request for aid in their situation. They were currently doing all in their power to help Qui-Gon with his task and yet…

He sighed again and rubbed his hands together. "I will meditate on this," he said and settled down to do just that.

It did not help. As much as he thought on it, as hard as he tried to solve the issue, no solution presented itself to him. Yet he refused to relent, thinking it over and over, releasing his steadily growing frustration into the force, trying to come up with another angle to look at the problem from.

The best case scenario would be for the people of Eneos to simply begin their evacuation now, while they had the breath to settle their things. Avoiding civil war as the only _good_ solution in litany of many bad ones. Because war or not Qui-Gon couldn't see a future where the situation in Eneos improved. And that… wasn't a good option at all!

"What is that, Master?" Feemor asked curiously and Qui-Gon opened his eyes to see he was turning something smooth and warm in his hand.

The river stone.

"Ah," Qui-Gon said. "It's just a pebble I picked up from a river once. It… helps me think, sometimes."

It did. The stone accepted his emotions better than the Force did – and sometimes Qui-Gon somewhat guiltily released his emotions into _it_ rather than the Force like he should. There was an odd satisfaction in feeling the stone react to them – feeling it heat up softly in his hand as he fed his frustration and insecurity and fear into it.

It was very un-Jedi like thing to do. As was bringing the stone out during meditation just because the feel of it was _comforting_.

"It's very… pretty?" Feemor offered.

With a shake of his head Qui-Gon pushed the stone back into his pocket. He should leave it in Coruscant the next time they visited the temple – he was relying on it too much. "Please make contact with the Temple, my Padawan. I need to talk with the Council about the situation here – I fear there is no solution for it."

 

12.

 

There hadn't been – the Eneos mission had been a pointed lesson for him. Qui-Gon's track record with his mission success was something to be proud of – he was one of the most accomplished young knights in the order, and so far every mission he'd completed had been a success. It irked him beyond believe, but thanks to his track record, the Council had decided to give him a lesson in failure.

"Getting ahead of yourself you were," Yoda said to him plainly when he just barely managed to keep himself from gawking at them. "Complacent and overconfident – dangerous such feelings are and indulging them you have been."

Honestly Qui-Gon didn't feel that he'd been getting over confident. But there was a very good chance that he was. He trusted in himself and his own abilities with easy security which, now that he looked on it more closely, was very close to pride and overconfidence. He'd even gone as far as taken a Padawan quite early, just because he'd felt that someone with his skills _should._ Not to mention that he'd trusted his own abilities with a student without ever stopping to question it or himself.

It was somewhat conceited, yes.

The problem was that thanks to his high skills with the Living Force he was often send on missions where such abilities were needed, and no matter how prideful it was to admit it – Qui-Gon _excelled_ in those missions. It was very hard to fail at something when it came so naturally to him.

Still. The lesson was irksome one – which, perhaps, was the whole point.

"Well, if nothing else, Master, you managed to keep those people from breaking out into a civil war?" Feemor offered him.

"Only for the moment," Qui-Gon sighed and accepted the lesson in humility he'd been given. "Chances are the measures we took on Eneos will only stand for so long. Migrating from a whole star system to another is neither an easy choice to make, nor it is an easy task to accomplish. Chances are Eneos will see war before the end."

He didn't leave the river stone in the temple when he and Feemor headed out for their next mission. Part of it was secret spite which he released into the Force as quickly as he recognised it in himself. It was such a childish thing to feel – and to do – and yet he had to admit that it was a childishness that did indeed exist in him. The council didn't even know about the stone or Qui-Gon's own, secret reliance on its ability to absorb Force and emotions, so it was not as if he was truly slighting them in continuing the secret practice. And yet, he was.

He was learning quite a lot of new things about himself thanks to Eneos and none of them seemed too good.

 

13.

 

The years with Feemor taught Qui-Gon a lot about himself. Feemor was a good student – steady and reliable. Qui-Gon often wondered whether he, with his increasingly rebellious ways, was a good master for the boy – but then again, Feemor was the sort of person who would've done well no matter how taught him. The boy was like a rock – immovable and immutable – and like a rock he could've survived a poorer master than Qui-Gon.

He even survived all the trials the Council set in front of _Qui-Gon_. And there were many of those. Eneos was only the start of a long string of odd missions.

A mission to a nearly empty world to watch over the blooming of a rare tree. It was cited because the tree's flowers produced nectar that was absolutely vital to certain medicine and that every ten years, when the tree bloomed, it was under a terrible risk of being poached on. And true enough, there was several attempts at the tree – even a company of bounty hunters came after the flowers. Still it didn't explain why Qui-Gon and Feemor had to be stationed there a month in advance.

Another strange mission, this one to a plague ridden, starving world, where for nine weeks Qui-Gon and Feemor worked together with the MediCorp branch of the Jedi Service Corps, offering what assistance they could to the world. Qui-Gon had a dark suspicion that the Council had sought to find the limits of his abilities with the Living Force – and they had. It was one of the most miserable missions he'd ever taken part in.

And yet another mission soon followed, this one to aid a small moon colony in eradicating an entire species of creatures. They were small and vicious – little omnivorous lizards that had invested an entire planet and were steadily eating _everything_ on it. Someone had created the species in a laboratory, as a way to treat trash – only it had escaped and multiplied explosively and now threatened the entire moon. Their eradication was absolutely necessary – and Qui-Gon did not enjoy a moment of it.

And though there were good missions amongst the terrible ones, they all had a flavour to them that made Qui-Gon absolutely certain they had been hand picked for him.

"I don't suppose you know what the council is about, with these strange… missions?" Qui-Gon asked his own master, giving Dooku's studiedly innocent look a suspicious one in return. "You do know. You know exactly what they mean."

"Oh, my old Padawan," Dooku chuckled, patting his shoulder. "Don't you know? A new teacher is as much a student as his apprentice is."

That did not comfort Qui-Gon one bit.

"One would think that as a knight I would finally be done with studying," he muttered to himself, turning the river stone idly in his fingers as he tried to meditate some calm through the irritation. The stone pulsed with warmth against his fingers and he sighed, releasing the frustration into the stone and smiling slightly at the pulse of heat it shot back at him.

He really should stop using it and yet…

Ruefully he admitted that knight or not, he was far from being the image of a perfect Jedi – if there even was such a thing. Whatever the Council was trying to teach him, it was obvious he had long way to go.

 

14.

 

When the council offered Feemor the chance to take his trials, it surprised Qui-Gon completely. Feemor was still so young and there was still so much left to teach him, so much left to show him. Though Feemor was in no way weak, both his Force Abilities and his saber skills needed quite a lot of work. Qui-Gon was proud of Feemor and he did not hide it – but a knight, already? Could Feemor really handle the duties of a Jedi Knight?

"It feels… much too soon," he admitted to Yoda slowly. "And shouldn't it be the Master's duty to say when the student is ready?"

"Ready, your student is. Far more ready he is, than you were for your trials, I think," the old master said and looked at him studiously. "See you not the great Jedi Feemor already is?"

Qui-Gon all but squirmed. Feemor was more a Jedi than he was, that was for sure. Thought not as skilled as some, or as powerful as others, Feemor was… extremely established in his ways. He was steady and calm in a way Qui-Gon certainly wasn't. Feemor had always been so, but he'd grown into his quiet manners – from a steady boy to an utterly unshakeable young man.

Qui-Gon sighed. "But there is so much more I can teach him," he said and even to his own ears he sounded plaintive.

Yoda answered him with a throaty, laugh. "Final lesson this is for Master Qui-Gon," the little Grand Master said smugly. "Ready your Padawan is, and know it you do. Now let go if him you must."

"M-Master –?" Qui-Gon asked with surprise. "Me? You must be joking."

Yoda just laughed that smug laugh of his, and headed off, gimer stick merrily waving as he went. Qui-Gon frowned after him and then looked away.

A Master. _Him_ a Jedi Master. Why? He neither felt like one, nor did he want to be one. He was perfectly satisfied as a Knight and it had been as far as his aspirations had ever gone. He was an active Jedi, active on the _field_ and that was what he wanted to be, that was how he wanted to live out his life. That was what Jedi Knights did. Jedi Masters, on other hand…

It was an honour – a great honour, one that would not be refused. And true enough there were Masters who were active in field work. He should not despair just because most of the Masters he knew just happened to occupy positions that made his skin crawl.

 Qui-Gon took a breath and then released the annoyance into the Force. Then he set out to find his Padawan to wish him well in the upcoming trials and in the end to face his own final trial – releasing his first student from his own tutelage.

It was a lesser trial compared to the honour of becoming a Master, yes, but only he knew that and it was probably for the best that he kept it to himself. After all, what Jedi did not aspire for such a thing, what Jedi did not hope of one day becoming a great and wise Master?

It was, Qui-Gon mused ruefully, the wisdom part that he rather lacked. If his years as Feemor's Master had taught him something it was that whatever he was, _wise_ was not it.

 

15.

 

A settlement negotiation between two warring corporations. The Fewhwsa Mining Utilities which specialised in the use of nano machinery in asteroid mining, and the Et-01, another asteroid mining corporation, this one specialising in the use of droids. They'd somehow managed to acquire the mining rights to the same asteroid belt from an extremely militant star system, which had sold the mining rights to the highest bidder when a near by super nova had knocked a large portion of the asteroid field into wholly new and dangerous orbits.

Qui-Gon was sent to smooth out the situation before it escalated. While the dispute between the corporations wasn't precisely something that fell under Jedi jurisdiction, the situation with the actual star system _did_. The R'reori were a warrior people and eager to fight – and far more eager to take offence. If the two corporations decided to settle their differences with blaster fire, it was very likely the R'reori would take it very badly.

The last time R'reori had dealt with outsiders and found themselves offended, they'd declared war with all systems involved with the participants. The ensuing war had been devastating and utterly pointless.

"The sales charter plainly states Fewhwsa has the rights to mine all the asteroids in the R'reori Tertiary Belt," the spokesperson of Fewhwsa said, glaring over the table at the representative from Et-01.

"Well the contract the R'reori signed with Et-01 gives the mining rights to us!" the other miner snapped. "This belt is ours; Fewhwsa has no claim to it!"

"No claim?! You with your obviously faked contract –!"

"Does either contract say that these rights are exclusive?" Qui-Gon asked, and could already feel what enormously bad idea this was. The difficulty here was that R'reori themselves couldn't be questioned about the conflicting contracts – that was as good as intentionally picking a fight with them and neither party involved dared to do that. So they fought each other and try as he might, Qui-Con couldn't make them even think of trying to be reasonable.

Because it so happened that the R'reori Tertiary Belt was rich in platinum – substance which was worthless to the R'reori themselves, but which was as good as currency elsewhere in the galaxy.

The situation with the mining rights escalated quickly and quite irreversibly. Before Qui-Gon knew, the two representatives were very nearly literally at each others throats and then stupidest thing happened and one party sabotaged the other's mining equipment. The ensuing explosion rocked the entire mining platform they'd attempted to their peace talks off course and that was then seen by the R'reori that had been watching the situation closely.

Within few hours, the platform was over taken by R'reori troops who had decided that the two mining corporations weren't there to mine at all – but had used it as a front to spy on the R'reori empire, and to create an alliance of enemies to stalk their territories. And Qui-Gon was caught quite middle of it.

And then he was trampled under it.

 

16.

 

Qui-Gon had been captured before, many times. What made the imprisonment by the R'reori worse than all the others was the fact that unlike most of those who had managed to capture Qui-Gon, the R'reori knew how to subdue a Jedi and to keep them harmless. Force Inhibitors were just the beginning of it – the R'reori used a sonic device called the Screamer. It generated a pitch of sound that was really not sound at all – just a pain that got in through his ears and echoed inside his head, going up and down, high and low, on and on and on…

That, on top of the drugs, made it very hard to think, never mind concentrating on coming up with an escape plan.

Qui-Gon huddled in the corner of his cell, trying to meditate, trying to _think_ but the noise was reverberating through his very bones and he kept automatically trying to call for the Force, for its soothing release and guidance and it just wasn't there. There was nothing there, no one, just himself and his head, echoing with the noise. On and on and on…

His only hope was that the Order would heard about what had happened and send someone to rescue him – or at least negotiate his release. And yet he knew that wouldn't happen because the R'reori didn't negotiate.

Right now the R'reori were probably busy planning their upcoming invasion for the Fewhwsa and Et-01's home planets.

Groaning, Qui-Gon pulled his legs up and tried his hardest to just pin his head between his knees with the faint hope that that would block out the noise. It didn't work and he swore he could feel the noise at his finger tips and in his eye balls – up and down, high and low, on and on…

And it didn't go anywhere. For hours, for days – for an eternity – the noise droned on, drumming at his body with very nearly physical blows until he was shaking and aching and utterly weak under its never ending bombardment. The Screamer was technically not a torture device – its effect was subtle and very nearly exclusive to Force Users.

Technically, it didn't hurt.

Technicality wouldn't save his sanity, if it went on for much longer.

If it was quiet he could've meditated. If it was quiet he could've put himself a healing trance or just… accepted his fate. The likelihood of rescue was minuscule – the chances of escape non-existent. The R'reori had taken everything – he could almost remember that, somewhere under the noise. They'd taken his cloak and his utility belt, his lightsaber had been the first thing he'd lost… he was going to miss that, if he didn't die here.

It was a good lightsaber. The first one he'd constructed in Ilum. Dooku had been proud – even if the hilt had been standard and straight.

What were the chances he'd get the chance to make another, if he couldn't retrieve it?

What were the chances he would _get_ a chance?

Was the noise getting louder or was his condition worsening

The only thing they hadn't taken were his clothes and…

For a moment…

Qui-Gon swore there were feathers, all over him.

 

17.

 

There was a white space… somewhere. It went on and on, endless and colourless, except for the ground. The ground was beautiful and luminescent and utterly covered with flowers.

Qui-Gon stood there for forever, staring at them. He knew them. He'd touched one of those flowers once, somewhere. Curious he knelt down and reached for one of them, tracing a finger along the edge of the petals. They were surprisingly sturdy, somewhat trumpet like with gracefully arching petals and golden filaments. Even in the white light of this strange place, they were incandescent.

They were glowing with the power of the Living Force.

"I've become one with the Force," he murmured and then frowned. No, he hadn't. This wasn't the Force. This was something else.

"A memory," a male voice said from behind him – answering the thought, rather than the words. "My memory. I used to visit this place, once. It's been a long time though."

Qui-Gon turned to look over his shoulder. There was someone there, standing amidst the flowers – or maybe floating. It was hard to say. It was hard to say what the person looked like either – as much as he tried, Qui-Gon's mind refused to make identification. He couldn't even say if the person had eyes or mouth or any sort of recognizable features. He squinted, and still the figure remained unrecognizable.

"Sorry," the strange shape said. "It's been a while. I haven't bothered to maintain a mental shape. Give me some time and I might remember what I looked like. It's funny, actually. I remember what this place looked like and it was never real. But I can't remember the shape of my own face."

"Who are you? What are you?" Qui-Gon asked.

He couldn't tell if the figure had a mouth, but somehow he could tell that regardless, it was smiling. _He_ was smiling.

"I suppose you could call me a memory too," the figure said and reached forward, pressing a hand that Qui-Gon couldn't even see properly on the Jedi Master's forehead. It pulsed with warmth and it felt… familiar.

"It's time for you to go, Qui-Gon," the figure said. "Wake up now."

 

18.

 

Even when he was put in front of the Jedi Council later, Qui-Gon couldn't tell them how he'd managed to get away from the R'reori. He knew as much as anyone did. The fear the R'reori had had concerning the asteroid belt had came true, and number of the asteroids had been pulled into a collision course by the R'reori home world's gravity. In the ensuing meteor bombardment, large part of the R'reori capital city had been utterly levelled.

Qui-Gon _thought_ he'd been kept in that city. He _thought_ it was also where he had made his escape, during that deadly meteor shower that had all but wiped out the capital from the face of planet entirely. He _thought_ he had found a transport still intact in the capital city and either stolen or it stowed away on board it.

Problem was, he couldn't remember any of it.

"I was drugged, I was… not in my right mind," Qui-Gon said, shaking his head ruefully. "For a while there I believe I was delirious. I thought I had visions. By the time I was sensible again, I was already back on the mining platform. The Fewhwsa were fleeing the system and one of their cargo haulers was kind enough to give me passage out of the system. That is as much as I can say for certain."

"Hm. Lucky you are," Yoda said, looking at him closely, his eyes piercing. Then he looked at his fellow council members. "Untenable the situation with the R'reori is. Cautiously must we thread concerning the issue."

"So far we haven't heard whether or not your escape was noticed or if the R'reori think you were killed in the meteor shower," Saesee Tiin said, watching Qui-Gon neutrally. "The Grand Master is right. We must be cautious."

Cautious meant that they wanted Qui-Gon to remain in the temple, and out of sight for a while. Qui-Gon could hear the message behind the words as well. A senseless Jedi acting out an escape and then having little recollection of it later was a worrisome thing – because there was no telling what had happened or what he had done.

What he might've resorted into.

And Jedi as powerful in the Living Force as Qui-Gon could easily make himself forget such things he did not wish to remember, even if the drugs and the Screamer hadn't muddled his mind.

Qui-Gon bowed his head and acquiesced to the unspoken order. As it was, he rather felt like some meditation was in order. Whatever had happened in R'reori had rattled him in more ways than one and he needed to re-establish his balance, needed to centre himself again.

No matter how he tried, he couldn't get rid of the scent of the White Lilies.

 

19.

 

In the end, there was no backlash from the R'reori incident – not aside from the R'reori closing up their boarders and increasing their already high boarder security. The greater galactic public chalked it up as R'reori being R'reori, as they tended to do something similar every ten years or so, and no one really cared what had happened. Neither Fewhwsa now Et-01 got their platinum and overall the whole incident was a great loss for both corporations, as they had paid good money for their mining rights and then never gotten to cash in on that investment.

If they blamed Jedi for the loss of Revenue, Qui-Gon neither heard about nor did he particularly care. He meditated instead and found his balance again and eventually, after couple months of resting and visiting Mind Healers, he managed to put the incident behind him.

Almost.

"Have you started using flower soap?" Tahl asked with some amusement, sniffing curiously at the air next to him. "That's not like you at all, Qui-Gon, although… it smells nice. What is that scent?"

"I… don't know. It's just something I got somewhere along the way." Qui-Gon almost stammered, swallowing the shock. He wasn't sure which was worse – the fact that he'd almost managed to convince himself that the smell wasn't real – or the fact that it _was_. "What does it smell like?" he asked slowly, staring at the Noorian closely.

Tahl hummed, tilting her head, thinking about it. "I don't know… just like flowers," she shrugged and narrowed her eyes. "Why do I think they might be white…?"

It was enough to alarm anyone. Somehow Qui-Gon had managed to drag the scent of flowers out of a delirious _dream_. And for a while, he was deeply disturbed by it. It didn't fade and he couldn't wash it away – it hung around him like an aura, except one made of scent. And wasn't only a scent either – because when ever he asked people what it smelled like, they all somehow ended with the same impression.

They all said that the flowers were white. A young Initiate, a girl maybe five years old, even managed to describe them accurately. "It's like trumpet, but pretty," she said with all the seriousness of a young initiate talking to a Jedi Master. "With six petals, that arch outward."

Somehow the scent that wasn't supposed even to exist managed to communicate _knowledge_ with it. Anyone would've been disturbed by it.

But more than that… Qui-Gon was deeply intrigued.

He'd touched something there, in that prison in R'reori. Or something had touched him. Something familiar.

Something that came from _Gaia_.

 

20.

 

Qui-Gon turned the river stone in his fingers, watching how the light of the Coruscanti sun gleamed on it's surface. He'd carried it almost ten years now, ever since his visit to Gaia. It had been a constant companion, through all of his missions and all of his travels. It had been with him in R'reori, too. After all, it was just a stone, hardly bigger than a decent sized marble, so the R'reori hadn't bothered to take it from him.

 For all that he'd examined the stone a thousand times, he'd never noticed that it had veins in it. In the polished black surface of the stone there were deep red veins, like cracks, running all through it. When they caught the light, they glowed bright vivid red.

Qui-Gon smiled, turning the stone again and slowly channelling all of his curiosity into it.

It echoed back with a hint of amusement.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't posted on ao3, so...


	5. Darkside Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qui-Gon stares, astonished and dismayed, at the scene taking place beyond the glass. 
> 
> Written back in 2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this being 2 years old, and involving Darkside stuff, Force Choking and implications of torture.

Qui-Gon stares, astonished and dismayed, at the scene taking place beyond the glass. Two Sith, imprisoned at the heart of the Jedi Temple – both of them painfully familiar and yet so very strange. One is on his knees, in a trance that was more a controlled cultivation of malice than meditation – the other is pacing the length of the cell, his movements violent and angry.

"This is impossible," he murmurs.

Mace Windu lets out a sound beside him that is half a snort, half a sigh. "They were discovered in the training salle following the… explosion," he says, taking a small holo device and playing back a recording. In it the two Sith stood back to back, fighting distinct figures of Jedi that flickered in and out of the recording. "It took nearly an hour to overwhelm them, and that only because we had the superior numbers to their two."

"How did they… how is this possible?" Qui-Gon asks, tearing his eyes away from the two Sith. "Where did they come from, _how_?"

"The best theory we have right now is temporal dislocation – they're from alternate reality," Mace says, closing the recording just as one of the Sith lost his lightsaber. "We don't know which side the explosion took place in – ours or theirs – but somehow it tore open a brief wormhole between our reality and theirs. And it spat them at us."

"But… they're…" Qui-Gon swallows and turns to the scene below.

Anakin Skywalker – dead now for more than three years – is still pacing the length of the room, a striking figure in his black clothing. Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is slowly building up his presence of hatred as he… _meditates_ , is similarly clothed in dark, though instead of strict black there is hint of dark red in his tunics. He's been dead for thirteen years.

"Has their identities been confirmed?" Qui-Gon asks, turning to Mace.

"Scans confirm it," Mace says. "But you understand, with a temporal dislocation… it means very little to confirm their identities here. That says nothing about who they are. All you really need is to look at them to know that neither of them is what we think they are."

"Right," Qui-Gon mutters, turning back to the window. He can't quite decide which one of them to look. His two padawans, both long lost and long mourned, here, alive, and twisted. Obi-Wan like he always hoped to see, grown strong – and yet he's exactly like Qui-Gon had never wished to see him, dark and hateful. And Anakin, so much like he was before he'd been snatched from life – here and now suddenly alive and barely containing his violence.

"Have they said anything?" Qui-Gon asks and forcibly withholds the desire to rest a hand on the screen separating him from his foreign padawans.

"They exchanged few words during the battle – directions to each other – but that is all," Mace says and looks at him. "Since then they've kept their peace, as is it is. Here," he then says and motions away from the window. "Here's what we confiscated from them."

The objects they'd taken from the two Sith were arranged in neat lines on a table at the end of the room. The lightsabers – hand crafted and obviously unique, both of them wrought in black. Qui-Gon doesn't need to activate them to know that both blades would shine red. Beside them are their utility belts, both similar to Jedi equivalent, but yet different – there are clasps and hooks for equipment Jedi don't carry. Those items rest beside the belts.

Durasteel stun-cuffs. Choke collars, also durasteel. Chip pistols, and matching magazines. There's a single electro-whip coiled up neat beside them, a long tail of smooth, malleable wire that looks utterly vile. Then there's a line of phials, each of them labelled. Paralysing agent, powerful anaesthetic – and then several concoctions with more terrible purposes. One that makes skin so sensitive touch becomes pain, one that weakens the mind and resolve leaving the victim defenceless, another that confuses the victim beyond point of reason… and so on.

Each of the items is a testament of violence – but there is also something else there. While the whip and the concoctions obviously indented for torture stand in testimony to their owner's dark purpose… the cuffs and numerous drugs intended for incapacitation only speak of something else.

"If I didn't know better, and if it wasn't for the whip and this…" Qui-Gon rests a finger over the plast-cast cap of the torture drug. "I'd say these are the tools of a law enforcement officer. Which one of them carried the whip."

Mace hesitates, glancing at the window, obviously not certain whether to name the Sith in captivity. "The… Master," he finally says and folds his arms. Then, pressing his lips thinly together, he adds, "The scans show that they've both felt the sting of such devices. They both bear scars."

Qui-Gon's fingers curl into a fist and closes his eyes for a moment. Obi-Wan carried a whip. Obi-Wan – the boy who'd once left the Jedi Order out of compassion and kindness, unwilling to bear the hurt of others without acting… carried a whip.

There are two more objects on the table – two robes neatly folded, both of them black. Yet, they're familiar – made of the same synthwool as Jedi robes, rough and durable. One of them has a red inner lining. Qui-Gon supposes that one belongs to the Master of the two – to Obi-Wan.

The Sith Master, if not Sith Lord.

Swallowing the bitter taste in the back of his throat at the thought, Qui-Gon turns to the window again. Anakin, or the one that in this reality was Anakin, has now stopped pacing – he's standing in front of the window, staring. He can't see them, the window is only one way and solid grey on their side, but he's obviously aware of them there. He glares and his eyes glint with inner, malicious light.

Anakin opens his mouth to say something and in that moment Obi-Wan moves, sudden and forceful, lifting his hand from where he'd been resting it on his knee. His fingers curl in towards his palm in a vicious way and with horror Qui-Gon watches Anakin suddenly choke. The young man's lips draw taunt into a grimace and all the muscles and veins of his neck flex as invisible force curls around his throat and squeezes.

Obi-Wan hasn't even opened his eyes, he's still halfway into his malicious trance even as he chokes his… what, companion? His _apprentice_?

"We need to stop him –" Qui-Gon says, horrified – but Mace only shakes his head, motioning him to stand down.

Just as sudden as it had begun, the young Sith is released. The Master's hand lowers and joins it's mate at his knee and he continues his careful cultivation of hatred while younger man gasps for a breath, leaning with one hand on the window between and rubbing at his throat, eyes flashing hatefully. He draws violently away from the window and then stalks his way towards his Master, collapsing on his knees in front of him, head bowed and shoulders tense.

The elder captive's eyes open, and where younger male's eyes glint with heat, the Master's eyes radiate it – the irises are acrid, sulphur yellow, surrounded by a band of cinder red. It's only a glimpse, he glances at his apprentice and then closes his eyes again, and the malice and anger flexes and swells around him – and draws Anakin in, forceful and oppressive.

"What _was_ that?" Qui-Gon finally manages to choke out, staring at them, at the Apprentice, who's bowed so low that he's almost resting his head on his Master's knees. He's not quite calming down, more like he's being so smothered under his Master's hatred that it's draining the energy from his barely constrained violence. "What _was_ that?"

Mace lets out a sigh, more a shudder than exhalation really. "It's not the first time it's happened," he says. "The Apprentice makes a move to say something and the Master silences him. Controlling him."

"Sweet Light, that's…" Qui-Gon runs a hand over his face, his fingers shaking. It is dark, all of it. Unforgivably dark. He draws a breath and turns to Mace. "What is going to be done about them?"

"Truth be told… we have no idea," Mace says. "You see, when they were captured, there were no fatalities. There were barely any injuries. Aside from appearing inside the temple unannounced they have nothing but defend themselves. Hardly a punishable offence."

"But they _did_ appear inside the temple. Two Sith," Qui-Gon says, slow and troubled.

"Two Sith from alternate reality," Mace says pointedly. "Who, judging by their reaction at the time, had no intention of making such a trip in the first place. And since they were captured they have done very little that anyone could construe as offensive. They haven't even attempted to escape."

"Nothing offensive at all, except one of them _choking_ the other," Qui-Gon pointed out, staring at the Sith Master. He can't think of him as Obi-Wan anymore. No matter what he looks like. It's not Obi-Wan.

Mace sighs and looks at him. "Someone needs to talk to them. And while there is no knowing how different our two universes are… well. In light of who they are and their obvious connection to each other, there is a chance they know a version of you."

"You want me to talk to them," Qui-Gon says, frowning. "Haven't you tried interrogating them?"

"We've tried," Mace says. "They won't speak to anyone, and we've all tried, using variety of tactics. Out means don't have much effect on them, which is hardly surprising considering what they had in their possessions."

People used to dealing with torture wouldn't bat an eye at Jedi interrogation methods. Qui-Gon scowls, looking through the window to the twisted reflections of the good people he'd known once.

"Will you speak with them?" Mace asks.

Qui-Gon stares at the Sith Master, taking in his auburn hair and well trimmed beard – something he'd never imagined for Obi-Wan, but which fits his face surprisingly well. His Obi-Wan had still had the Padawan's cut when he'd joined the Force. This man has his hair grown long and little loose, curling softly at his neck. If it wasn't for the tension on his posture, the hate shrouding him, then Qui-Gon would've said that the style he's adopted softens his features.

If he hadn't seen the Sith _hurting_ his own apprentice – or what Qui-Gon presumes is his apprentice – then Qui-Gon could've fooled himself into believing that it is his own Padawan, gone for thirteen years and mysteriously retuned.

And the Apprentice, now in trance as well, his hair cut short, his posture tense – he has his back to Qui-Gon and that way he can almost convince himself that he doesn't bear Anakin's face. The line of his shoulders is familiar too – and he wears the same style tabard as Anakin had, stiff, wide shouldered and imposing.

Does he want to speak with them? No. Yes.

Qui-Gon looks away. "Can I take a moment to prepare?" he asks.

"Take as long as you need," Mace says. "They're not going anywhere."

 

* * *

 

 

When Qui-Gon enters the room where the two Sith are being held, the already terrible tension in the room racks up severely. The Sith Master's eyes flash open and then narrow dangerously and the Apprentice hisses quietly and tenses like a serpent about to attack. Neither say anything, but they stare at Qui-Gon hard and intense, as if trying to see right through him and into his core.

"I guess there is no need to ask whether you two know who I am then," Qui-Gon says and the door hisses shut and locked behind him, locking him in with two Sith. "Whether you two bear the names of the people I once knew, whether I bear the name of the man you knew, I do not know, but allow me to introduce myself. I am Qui-Gon Jinn. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn," he says and stares at the Sith master. "Now may I have your names?"

The Sith stare at him and then the apprentice turns to look at the master – who in answer smoothly rises to his feet, a single fluid motion of the highly trained and fully battle prepared. "Sith Lord Obi-Wan Kenobi," he says, voice so familiar and yet so strange with it's mocking tone. He bows his head ever so slight, his eyes never straying from Qui-Gon. "At your service, _Jedi_."

The Apprentice rises to his feet also – he gives a full body bow, low and utterly contemptuous. "Sith Apprentice Vader, under Sith Lord Kenobi," he says, closing his eyes and lowering his face in mockery of subservience. When he straightens, his face is a hard mask of suspicion. "What the fuck is going on here?" he asks and glances at his master. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"Quiet," Kenobi answers and almost negligently waves a hand at his apprentice – Vader crashes down to his knees, hand coming up to clutch at the invisible force gripping him by his neck again. This time it's not a choke hold, however, merely a restraint – if such forceful, hateful use of the force can be _merely_ anything.

Qui-Gon narrows his eyes and Kenobi meets the look with arched eyebrow and proud tilt to his head – amused by his judgement. "Temporal anomaly, I suppose," he says, looking Qui-Gon up and down. "Jedi," he mutters and shakes his head. "This must be a very strange universe indeed, for you to be _Jedi_."

"I wasn't in yours, then?" Qui-Gon asks.

"Oh, no you weren't," Kenobi says, taking in Qui-Gon's sand shaded tunics and smiling a crookedly at them. "But I suppose I am not surprised – you always had a sentimental streak in you." Shaking his head he looks around. "This is the Temple, but different. I suppose it's occupied by an all Jedi Order here?" he asks and the smile fades from his lips. "It's so very _light_ in here."

"You mean to say the temple is occupied by an Sith order in your universe?" Qui-Gon asks, incredulous.

Kenobi doesn't answer, folding his arms into the sleeves of his dark tunics and looking down at the silenced Vader who is glaring furiously at him. "What will you do with us?" he asks. "The temporal anomaly closed, and judging by your reaction, your side didn't cause it. You didn't plan for our arrival here any more than we planned to arrive. So. What do you intend to do with us?"

Qui-Gon eyes him. "That is the question, isn't it? That is what I'm here to figure out," he says and clasps his hands together, looking between Kenobi and Vader. "Why do you keep silencing him?"

"Because he has no control to speak of," Kenobi says darkly, glancing at Vader who makes a face at him. "Don't even start, my apprentice. You know your faults. And I will let you speak once you can manage yourself again."

Vader huffs an annoyed breath at him but settles down a little, glaring at Kenobi's feet. Kenobi shakes his head and looks at Qui-Gon. "You spoke of us in past tense, I suppose here we are dead, then?" he asks and nods towards Vader. "Did you know him?"

"I knew an _Anakin Skywalker_ ," Qui-Gon says, his expression tense.

"Anakin Skywalker," Kenobi repeats slowly and Vader grimaces. "Well. Then you should know why control is an issue for him."

"I really don't," Qui-Gon says, eyes narrowing. "And I don't know _this_ sort of control."

Kenobi blinks at him, unimpressed by his judgement. "Perhaps that's why you _knew_ him in the past tense, then," he says and looks away. "I suppose that is irrelevant now. Do you intend to execute us?"

The Jedi is little taken a back by that. "Execute you?" he asks. "As far as we know you haven't done anything to deserve such a fate. As it is it is not how Jedi deal with things," he says and shakes his head. "Which is why I am here, in fact. Tell me, when you arrived and were forced to defend yourself… why didn't you kill anybody? You had the ability, didn't you? You could've taken down a number of the Jedi you were facing before you were taken down."

"Perhaps, but why would we?" Kenobi asks coolly. "We were out numbered and in a situation where our opponents had the upper hand. And we were in the heart of what looked like our own Temple, only full of enemies. With as many Light Side signatures I could feel, it was obvious the temple was fully occupied by people who weren't our own – so, escape wasn't a feasible prospect. Our defeat was inevitable. Killing our opponents would've only angered our captors, worsening our odds of survival later on."

Qui-Gon is a little surprised by the answer. He isn't sure why but that isn't what he'd been expecting. "That's all?" he asks. "You didn't want to provoke anger in your captors?"

"What, did you expect compassion?" Kenobi asks, eyebrows lifting slightly.

"No," the Jedi admits. He hadn't expected restraint either, however. "Tell me about the Sith Order you come from."

Kenobi pauses at that, eying him. "First you tell me something," he says. "Are there Sith here? Or is it only Jedi?"

Qui-Gon considered that and then shook his head. "The Jedi occupy the temple, and the Jedi Order is the only sanctioned organisation of Force Users in the Republic," he says. "But there are Sith. Two of them – a master and apprentice – and they are the most wanted and hated criminals in the galaxy. They incite chaos and turmoil and are believed to behind numerous wars, including the one we're in right now."

Vader starts slightly at that and Kenobi's eyes narrow slightly. "A war," he repeats.

"The Clone Wars, we call it," Qui-Gon says. "It is widely believed that Sith have engineered it, or at least manipulated one if not both sides of the war to fuel the flames of our conflict, turning a dispute into a galaxy wide war. It had been going on for three years now."

Kenobi swallows at that and his eyes blaze brighter, but aside from that he doesn't seem to react. "A war. I see," he says noncommittally and, for some reason, rests a hand on Vader's hair. "Criminals, are they," he muses. "That's funny."

"Why?" Qui-Gon demands. "What's funny about it?"

"Because, my dear _Jedi_ … in our universe, it is with job of Sith Order to hunt down criminals," Kenobi says and smiles darkly. "Funny, isn't it?"


	6. Rewrought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit o time travel
> 
> Written back in 2015

Obi-Wan started slightly and looked sharply around him. Qui-Gon was beside him, talking with the Queen of Naboo as they hid in the shadows of a building. The architecture, the clothing of the people around him - _Qui-Gon_ beside him – made him first tense and then relax. Then his eyes landed on Anakin not few feet away from him, and he tensed again.

"Obi-Wan?" his Master asked, glancing at him over his shoulder. "Do you sense something?"

Obi-Wan forced himself to relax further. "Something's coming," he said and didn't elaborate.

Qui-Gon looked at him for a moment, taking in his expression. He nodded at whatever he saw there and turned to Padmé again, speaking quietly to her for a moment. She nodded, stepped back, motioned at the men and women around her to get ready.

The infiltration of the Theed palace begun a moment later. Obi-Wan's skin was burning all the while and he was doing all he could to swallow the things inside him, trying to burst through his skin and break free. His tension increased with each step, each moment, as he glanced over the well memorised scenes around him, so real and tangible. Taking out the droids, clearing and path – how many times had he gone over this in his head, trying so hard to come up with alternate solutions to problems they'd faced, alternate paths to the one's they'd taken?

And now they were here and there he was, Darth Maul, waiting him at the entrance. Obi-Wan breathed slowly in and out as his Master promised the queen that, "We'll handle this."

"We'll take the long way," Padmé answered, and led her people elsewhere. Obi-Wan was suddenly struck by the notion that he didn't know which way they'd taken, how they'd gotten in to the palace – how they'd captured Nute Gunray. It didn't matter now and there was little he could do to help, but he wondered.

He'd never know now.

Darth Maul leered at them and took out his saber staff. Obi-Wan snapped his own, his _old_ lightsaber from his waist and physically restrained himself from shifting to old familiar pose and instead opening with Ataru front guard, same as his master beside him. And then… then they fought.

Oh how well he remembered this. He'd spend hours pouring over the Theed Palace records – most everything in the palace was carefully monitored, so he had had the entire fight in Holovid, from the hangar all the way down to the power generator with only the smallest breaks here and there, in the rare blind spots of the palace. Hours and hours he'd spend, scouring over every detail, scrutinizing every move. Maul utilised the Form VII mostly, with hints of the Form IV, blending them both into his brand of aggression. Obi-Wan knew it well now, and in some parts, he'd formed his own style around it – to combat it in particular.

But he stuck to Ataru instead, following Maul's lead around the palace the same as his Master, across the corridors and down the stairs and finally, to the plasma refinery. There, on those trice cursed catwalks, Maul lead them by the nose and toyed with them, controlling the duel with all the ease of a trained Sith Lord.

Obi-Wan almost fell into the old rhythm of Ataru, memorised in some ways better than his other forms but in some ways worse. It was the form his young body had learned, growing up – the one Qui-Gon had so lovingly installed in him in his formative years. It helped that his young body was still primed and prepped for it – Soresu wasn't in his muscle memory yet. It felt almost comfortable…

Except for the time and the situation. His intent on getting this right kept him from finding that old, easy rhythm – which in some ways served him better than full concentration would have. Installed awkwardness into his movements he might've other wise lack – awkwardness which needed to be there.

Maul made to kick him off the catwalks, and Obi-Wan let him – let the duel disrupt for a moment. Then he chased after the Sith and his Master, counting seconds in his head.

There were the electron walls now, going in. Pushing all his might and all the Force in his disposal into his speed, Obi-Wan made it there in slightly better time than last time – but Qui-Gon and Maul were still ahead, and the walls were clicking shut, trapping him a bit behind Qui-Gon and Maul, who were separated from each other by two walls.

Five minutes.

Qui-Gon went to his knees to meditate – he was tired, the intensity of Ataru and the long duel was taking its toll on him. It had taken its toll on Obi-Wan too, but he was younger and hadn't been fighting with his all yet.

Four minutes.

Maul was pacing in front of the wall like uneasy cat, rattling it every now and then with his red saber – still whole, two bladed staff. Obi-Wan knew it well too – he'd hunted down every Jedi who used a lightstaff and begged for so many duels that they'd all gotten sick of him.

Three minutes.

Obi-Wan calculated moves, making plans and back up plans for each. If he had to he'd use Soresu – he'd use Djem So too, if it came to it. He'd use anything to make this go as he wanted it to – as he needed it to. But the Form IV, Ataru, would be ideal. It wouldn't rise any questions later.

Two minutes.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and released his emotions into the Force, all of them, every single one of them. Anakin would be in space right about now. Padmé was close to capturing Nute Gunray – or at least he hoped she was. The battles afar were almost over now, hopefully.

One minute.

Obi-Wan begun gathering Force, readying himself for the dash he had to make. He had ten seconds to get from where he was to the final barrier – and _past it_.

The walls began clicking open. In split of a second Qui-Gon and Maul were at it, fighting again, Ataru against Juyo. Obi-Wan ignored it, all of his intent on his goal now

He made it and then, reaching for his Master, he grabbed him in a Force hold, throwing him back into the corridor just as the walls at the end clicked open. Split of a second, the first laser wall clicked shut right in front of startled Qui-Gon, and it was _he_ who was behind the impenetrable wall, and Obi-Wan who was alone at the generator shaft with Maul.

"Obi-Wan!" his master shouted as Obi-Wan faced Maul, and was ignored.

It was changed. He'd done it.

Obi-Wan smiled at the Sith, his back to the laser walls – Qui-Gon wouldn't see the sheer _satisfaction_ in his eyes. Maul did see it and tensed at it, his eyes narrowing and his form stiffening. Then he recovered and rushed to attack him.

Obi-Wan answered in kind.

He and Mace Windu had practically bonded over this would-have-been fight. How many times had it been just him and the Master of Vaapad alone in the training salle, often times in the middle of the night, fighting this one fight? It had taken Obi-Wan months to get over the frustration and anger and bitterness, and Mace had given him thousand saber burns before he'd been satisfied. And though none of that was in Obi-Wan's muscle memory and so not as useful as it could've been… it didn't matter.

Because Obi-Wan was prepared – and Maul wasn't.

He could feel Qui-Gon watching, his quiet desperation thick in the air. Was this what Qui-Gon had felt from him, when their roles had been reversed? Had Obi-Wan's own desperation to help distracted his master – was he in some way responsible for his Master's death?

It didn't matter.

Obi-Wan shifted his footing and then launched a rapid sequence of attacks on Maul, throwing him off balance. They were vicariously near to the edge of the shaft opening now, and it took little more than a twist to knock Maul in.

And in a fraction of a moment between stable footing and a fall, Maul made a decision. Still falling, the Sith reached out with Force and yanked at Obi-Wan until he had his tunic in his grip and then…

They both tumbled over into the generator shaft, Qui-Gon's agonized howl echoing after them.

Obi-Wan grinned, his eyes blazing as Maul leered at him in satisfaction, both of them in free fall. The Sith made to slice Obi-Wan with his still staff just as Obi-Wan deactivated his own saber, put his hilt against Maul's stomach.

Then he reactivated it, the blade tearing into existence right through the Sith's body, blue blade only visible on his back. Once, twice, trice, over and over again, Obi-Wan flicked the blade off and on as Maul choked in shock and pain, each re-activation of the blade little aside from the last, tearing all new hole into the Sith, over and over.

It was even more satisfying than he would've thought, to see Maul choking in his own blood as his insides were burned into bits.

They were still falling, and as life faded from Maul's eyes, Obi-Wan spun around in air, grabbing the Sith by his blood soaked tabard. Then he looked first up and then down. Less than minute before the laser wall activated, and Qui-Gon would rush to the shaft, to see.

No time to waste.

Air vents flashed past them rhythmically, connecting the shaft into different levels of the plasma refinery. Obi-Wan calculated and then reached for the next one and using Maul's body to soften the fall, he landed onto it. If Maul wasn't dead yet, he definitely died the moment his spine was crushed against the edge of the air vent between gravity, and Obi-Wan's weight.

Quickly, Obi-Wan jumped into the vent, dragging Maul's body after him, leaving the edge of the air vent soaked in dark blood. As he dropped the limp, lifeless form onto the metal bottom of the vent, he let out a breath and collapsed to his knees beside him.

Then, with brutal efficiency, he severed his bond with Qui-Gon and shielded himself as tightly as he could – and considering the years he'd been hiding from a man of Vader's powers, his shields weren't inconsiderable. Just like that, Obi-Wan Kenobi died, crushed somewhere in the bottom of the generator shaft along with the Sith that had killed him.

And so, part one of his plans was accomplished.

Obi-Wan gave himself a moment to breathe and settle into the new reality, finally letting it wash over him – both the fact that he was mad enough to do this and the fact that he'd actually succeeded. He was here, he'd done it – Qui-Gon lived and none too worse to wear, except perhaps for a badly wounded psyche from the tearing of a bond and the loss of a Padawan. He'd recover, though. Temple, Anakin and time would heal him, same as it had healed Obi-Wan. Hopefully he'd even heal better then Obi-Wan had.

Obi-Wan breathed in and out, the air around him saturated with blood. Then he looked down to Maul's mangled form and noted with some relief that Maul was still holding the lightstaff in a death grip – now deactivated.

"I'll be taking that, thank you," Obi-Wan said quietly, reaching for the staff. He turned it in his hands for a moment, examining the grip and settling it into his palm before setting it aside. Then he began rummaging through Maul's clothing first for his tools and everything else useful. Maul, like a Jedi, only carried essentials, but Obi-Wan didn't care for his communications devices or his tools, chucking all of them into the shaft without care.

The only thing he cared about was the activator to Maul's ship. And perhaps Maul's clothes. But those were for later.

Now came the difficult part. Waiting. Waiting for Palpatine's arrival. Waiting for his chance to finish the job.

 

* * *

 

 

The first time the hologram picked up the cloaked figure was near the hangars. Just a sliver of a dark cloak in the corner of the cameras visual field, vanishing into the shadows.

A moment's break, and on another corridor the cameras picked up a shadow of a figure against the wall, barely visible in the darkness – the shadow showed the figure glancing left and right and then making a superhuman leap up and into the ventilation ducks, where the cameras couldn't follow – where they hadn't been installed.

Another camera set up maybe four minutes later. It showed security guards at each side of a door, watchfully scanning the darkened corridor  with their gazes just before and invisible force grabbed a hold of them and held them suspended in the air. Only once their silent, muffled struggling had ceased did the Force release them, laying them almost tenderly to the polished stone floor as a cloaked figure dropped from the ventilation system above, and to the corridor – his movement's so silent that the microphones hadn't picked up even the rustle of fabric.

The figure stood between the two unconscious guards for a moment before taking out a long saber handle, and activating the blade – blue in the hologram, but red in real life. The figure barely touched the door security system with the blade, short circuiting it and forcing the door open. Then, still silent, he stepped beyond the now open door, and vanished into the shadows yet again.

"And that's all we have," Mace Windu said, folding his arms as the holorecording rewound back to the moment the cloaked figure had stood in the corridor between the unconscious guard. "There are no recording devices in the personal suites – and High Chancellor Palpatine's suite had yet to be upgraded in security suitable to his station. We only have theory what took place inside, but considering the evidence and… the state the Chancellor was in…"

Qui-Gon stared blearily at the hologram, not really seeing it. His mind hadn't yet gotten over the shock of it all. Obi-Wan was… was… not here, and now this?

"The analysis from the High Chancellor's suite, do we have?" Yoda asked, frowning deeply at the hologram.

"The Naboo security detail don't waste time – and I've gone over the samples myself," Mace said, taking a datapad from the projector table and holding it out. "It's not enough for identity check, if the assassin is even on records, but the DNA is that of a male Zabrak. Looks like your opponent survived the fall at the reactor shaft, Qui-Gon."

Qui-Gon barely kept himself from grimacing. Survived. The Zabrak and _survived_ while Obi-Wan was just gone. Gone. Fallen out of life and into Force and though he knew he should celebrate it – that he would, some day celebrate it… his heart rebelled against it.

Not yet twenty five, not yet a _Knight_ and already gone into the Force, and at the hands of a monster from distant past. It was a thought far beneath that of a Jedi Master, and yet Qui-Gon couldn't deny thinking it. It wasn't _fair_.

Mace looked at him silently for a moment before turning to the datapad again. "As far as we know, the high chancellor didn't even wake up – the death was quick and painless," he said. "The motivations are still somewhat theoretical, but I think that with the Naboo blockade – which the Sith must've been supporting in one way or another – over, the Sith sought an alternative means of causing chaos."

"Hmm," Yoda hummed. "Difference there is between brief war on a outer rim planet, and then assassination of a very new High Chancellor," he said. "And different the impact is."

"Very different," Mace agreed darkly. Qui-Gon could only imagine what it might've been like – what sort of chaos the Senate was. Palpatine had been in office less than a week and he was assassinated. Whoever had wanted the Naboo blockade and invasion to succeed hadn't liked the setback caused by the Queen and, in lesser part, by the former Senator of Naboo.

"Dark day this is," Yoda murmured, running a hand over his head. "Darkness heavy here is. Doubt this will sow in the heart of the Republic."

"Tch," Mace answered. "Three Jedi Masters, two of them members of the High Council, and someone kills the High Chancellor right under our noses. There's going to be a riot in the senate over this and I don't even want to think what sort of fall back there will be on a more general level," he muttered and then glanced at his fellow council member. "I didn't sense _anything_ , did you, Yoda?"

"Nothing, but the remnant of the Dark Side from Qui-Gon's and his Padawan's fight," Yoda answered, shaking his head. "Shield himself well the Sith does. And shield himself he has for the past few days, to keep his survival a secret since the fight. Difficult I feel it will be to find him."

"If he's even on the planet anymore," Mace muttered. "The Sith's studied the Palace blue prints, that's obvious, to be able to move around undetected."

"Hm. And positions of all the cameras he knows, to avoid them so well."

"I want to lead the investigation," Qui-Gon said abrubtly – the first thing he'd said since seeing the hologram of the Zabrak.

"Denied," Mace answered without pause, still eying the datapad.

"Too close to the matter you are and too disturbed your mind is," Yoda said, reaching out and patting Qui-Gon's knee. "Arrangements for your Padawan you must make, that your first duty as his master is now. The investigation Master Windu and I will handle."

"But –"

"This is not up for debate, Qui-Gon, you will not defy the Council in this," Windu said, but not unsympathetically. "We'll keep you appraised through all the steps of the investigation, but you must deal with yourself first."

Qui-Gon winced, looking down at his hands. He clasped them together to stop their shaking. "There isn't even a body," he murmured bitterly. And it wasn't because of any miraculous technique of the Force either. Beneath the reactor shaft there was a dump for recycling – Obi-Wan's body couldn't have been there for half an hour before it had been… recycled.

"Memorial he still deserves," Yoda said and clasped his gimer stick. "And… there is young Skywalker to consider."

Mace sighed and Qui-Gon looked up between the two Council members. He didn't have the energy to argue for Anakin right then – his mind was too full of Obi-Wan's absence. This wasn't how it was supposed to be – his and Obi-Wan's parting was meant to be a joyful affair, even a proud one from his side. Not this… echoing emptiness.

The anticipation and assurance concerning Anakin wasn't there anymore – it couldn't take any space from the loss.

"Trained the boy must be, that far is certain," Yoda said. "Powerful is he, and alone he cannot be left. Fall pray to the dark side he might, and allowed that cannot be."

It was Mace's turn to hum and frown.

Anakin had, almost single-handedly, won the war of Naboo – and he'd done it almost unintentionally. If one was to really believe that there was no such thing as coincidence, then Anakin's actions during the invasion, and the ensuing battle in space were not only meant to happen but the boy had been guided by the Force.

Tests were one thing. This something else. The council could deny a child no matter how strong in force on the count of test being merely a test – but when that child went and, at Force's guidance and command, changed the future of an entire world? The Jedi High Council was many things, but it wasn't made of fools.

"Qui-Gon," Mace asked. "Are you up to training the boy?"

Was he? If Obi-Wan still had been there, the answer would've been easy, unhesitating yes. But…

Qui-Gon squeezed his hands together and thought back to that moment at the laser walls, with the Sith in front of him and Obi-Wan's steady, strong presence behind him. That moment, as the walls begun clicking open, as the fight resumed, as Obi-Wan's running steps sounded somewhere behind him.

That moment, when the Force grabbed at him and threw him back into the corridor and just behind an electron wall as it clicked damningly shut in front of him. The tug hadn't came from his front – it hadn't been the Sith that had removed him from the fight. It had been Obi-Wan.

Why? _Why_? They could've fought the Sith together – together, they could've won. Surely Obi-Wan had known that – after all, the entire fight the Sith had been doing nothing but trying to separate them. Together they'd been stronger than the masterful darksider. Surely Obi-Wan had _seen_ that? Surely…

The only answer Qui-Gon had been able to come up with was that Obi-Wan had sensed how tired he was, how his strength was waning. And then he'd decided to simply… spare him the trouble of resuming the fight. Perhaps he had thought that he could hold the Sith for a while by himself, to give Qui-Gon the necessary time to properly recover and yet…

Obi-Wan had done it to save his Master – and that, Qui-Gon knew, was his biggest failing as a teacher. When, how, _why_ Obi-Wan had came to the conclusion that Qui-Gon's life was worth more than his own, Qui-Gon didn't know, but somehow it had happened and it could be only his own fault. His fault.

Obi-Wan's death was his fault. He'd failed as a teacher.

Could he teach another, with that on his conscience? The Chosen One at that?

Qui-Gon looked up, indecisive. "If I will not, will anyone else?" he asked, his voice rough.

The two council members shared a look.

"Too old, the boy is," Yoda said finally. "But… unified the council is in this. Important it is that the boy be trained. Too strong he is to be left to his own devices," he said and looked at Qui-Gon. "To the temple he will go, a crèche he will join. In three years… a Master might choose him as their Padawan Learner."

So, instead of instant Padawan Learner, Anakin would become an initiate and only at the age where other initiates aged out, he'd be ready to become an apprentice. It was… probably the best solution for Anakin – it would give him the time and opportunity to learn what he need to know.

Qui-Gon nodded. "In three years," he agreed. Yoda's insinuation was clear enough and he might very well be right – Qui-Gon might be the Master who eventually took Anakin up. Right now though he wasn't ready to be anyone's master. Not Obi-Wan's. not Anakin's.

He stood up. "Pardon me, Masters," he said. "I must attend to Obi-Wan's… memorial."

Yoda and Mace both bowed their heads and said nothing as Qui-Gon left the room. Outside the darkened holoroom, the corridor was brightly lit by the sun's light, screening through the large open windows. Qui-Gon stared the light blearily where it fell, on the smooth marble floors. It made the floor glow copper and auburn.

It was too _bright_ for Obi-Wan to be dead. Too bright for his killer to have survived.

The _Sith_ lived while Qui-Gon's Padawan did not.

Qui-Gon examined the thought for a moment before swallowing his bitterness and releasing it into the Force. Then, with a deep breath, he headed to the hangar – and the first place the hologram picked the sight of the Zabrak since his supposed death.

For the next half an hour he went against the Council's wishes, and tracked the Zabrak's steps through the palace, from the hangar to the ventilation system, and finally to the front of the High Chancellor's suite. It was closed off by protocol droids and guards – but they all stepped aside for the Jedi, letting Qui-Gon into the suite without question.

Considering that a _Sith_ had been there, the place was very pristine, every piece of furniture a masterpiece of craftsmanship, not a thing out of place. Qui-Gon sent his senses out and could only barely detect the hint of lingering darkness in the suite. Most of it was in the bedroom, on the bed, where only a burned hole in the mattress and circle of blood marked where the Chancellor had lain.

Chancellor Palpatine had been killed in his sleep. Why? The death was almost merciful – quick and if the man had been lying on his back, almost painless. The saber blade had gone straight through the heart, and there had been no struggle. Why?

Surely a Sith would've rejoiced in a long, painful death. And if the Sith did indeed assassinate the High Chancellor merely because it was an opportunity to cause chaos and panic, then… why kill him? Why not kidnap him? The Sith certainly had seemed to have the means, if his easy movements around the palace were anything to go by.  Kidnapping the Chancellor would've given him power, leverage, prestige even. The republic would've been bending over sideways to get their leader back.

Instead a quick, efficient assassination, all done without fanfare and without noise. If it wasn't for the holorecordings, it would've been a perfect crime.

Qui-Gon stared at the bloodstained bed, standing right where the Sith had. Then he knelt down to the floor, where there were bits of dried blood – the Zabrak's blood. Judging by the scrape marks on the surface of the carpet, Mace must've gotten his blood sample from it.

The Sith was wounded. Whether it was Obi-Wan's doing, or if the Sith had gotten injured some other way, Qui-Gon didn't know and didn't care. He took pleasure in it, wishing the worst suffering on his Padawan's killer.

Then, moment later, he recognised the unworthiness of the thought and straightened, releasing it into the Force. He would do his Padawan's memory no service by letting in the Dark that had killed him. No, he would not rejoice the Zabrak's pain.

Not yet. Not before the Sith was _dead_.

Taking a breath and releasing it slowly, Qui-Gon looked at the bed once more and then turned to leave. There'd be consequences to this. A new High Chancellor, assassinated under Jedi Watch. True enough, they had thought the threat over, had thought the Sith dead. That wouldn't mean anything when people of the great Republic started looking for someone to place the blame on.

The Sith had wanted to cause chaos. He'd definitely succeeded in it. And in doing so, the Sith made one hell of an entrance, from obscurity and back into Galactic knowledge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that's it for my old attempts at Star Wars. Aside from couple of weird FF7 crossovers which I am not entirely sure where to post on ao3. Hmm.


	7. Faithless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan loses his faith in Tatooine

Obi-Wan wakes up to the sound of wind, brushing across the sand outside. It was quiet, barely discernible sound, a thin grace of roughness against the silence. Comparison to the noise of his dreams, it should be soothing.

It grates, though.

For a moment he lies there, on the hard cot under a thin blanket, wrapped tightly in his robes and cloaks under it. The nights of Tatooine are freezing and his little hut doesn't have any sort of functional atmospheric regulators – he's still shivering under all the fabric. Soon, though, soon the first sun would rise and then the second, and slowly the heat would start creeping in, spreading it's tendrils across the sun scorched rocks until it became oppressive and –

He was never going to get used to Tatooine's cycle of temperatures. From icy nights to burning days, with barely a breath's worth of something more pleasant in between. At night his bones ache and his old scars twist as if shrinking in the cold, tightening the weary muscles around them, tugging at skin not quite as supple as it used to be. At day, the heat quickly bears down on him, heavy and hard and all too much for his very human physiology, over heating and dehydrating him on daily basis.

They said that the desert sun of Tatooine could age a man decades in a single year. Obi-Wan doesn't doubt it in the least – it's already shaving off years of his life, the cycle of cold and heat, frost and burn.

He's shivering and cold under the blanket and he doesn't want to get up. It would be colder to get up, every movement an ache until he finally managed to limber up for proper function – and then, like always, just as he started to feel more like his old self... the heat would come. Staying in bed won't stave it off, he knows that, but still.

More and more he wonders what is the purpose of getting up early.

Meditation, he thinks. Morning routines. Ablutions. He should get up and stretch out his cold stiffened muscles and limber his sinews as well as he can – he's already lost enough of his flexibility in his prolonged inaction. Maybe today he could force himself to perform some katas. He should – he's been letting them fall more and more to the wayside.

He should make some tea, he thinks, and then remembers he's out. He drank his last leaf a week ago.

He should visit settlement – the Oasis maybe, to restock. Obi-Wan needs some more food at any rate – and mineral and vitamin supplements. Salt, if nothing else. He should finally buy that tool kit too, or at least some general purpose tools, for maintaining his little vaporator, the only thing in this damn desert that's keeping him alive.

A twinge of something rises in his chest at that thought, and he looks away from the sand stone ceiling and to the small window by the doorway. Through it he can see the shadow of the vaporator. Old model, barely functional – it had been there when he'd got the hut. Most days, doing maintenance on it is the only thing he does. The only reason he bothers to get out of bed.

Sometimes he really wishes...

No.

That's an unworthy thought.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Obi-Wan sets it aside. Irritation – should release it into the Force.

He doesn't do that either.

It's been weeks now since he last meditated. Like so many things in life, it just doesn't serve a purpose anymore.

* * *

 

It's been a year.

Year since they lost. Year since they died.

Obi-Wan keeps in touch with the Galactic news as much as he can, removed from society as he is. He visits the local settlements every so often and every time he does, he looks in on whatever bit of recent information from outside Tatooine they have. It's never pleasant, but with each month it has slowly grown less and less terrible.

The inexorable, insidious propaganda about the corruption and ineffectiveness of the Old Republic has done its job. For months the news had gone over and over all the missteps and mistakes the Old Republic had done, the points where it had failed, way it had inevitably collapsed, like it had been expected. A slow moving, slow acting behemoth of a government which had never been able to succeed at anything, too lazy, too gluttonous for it's own power to act.

In comparison the new and energetic Empire is getting everything it sets out to do done at record speed, no longer hampered by the weight of parliaments and meetings and committees. And it is indeed getting things done. And no longer at gun points, even.

At this point, the gun is forever implied, even if no longer present. And people are getting used to it. The chaotic birth of the Empire is over – it is settling into power and the Galaxy is settling into its new form of... peace. And it shows. People are getting bored of finding horror in their new situation and so it is starting to be normalized. They are simply the Empire now, and that's that.

Jedi are being purged from public knowledge. People still remember, of course, people still _know_... but the memory is being slowly painted over with more propaganda. A failed religious order given too much power too soon, put in charge of tasks they were ill equipped to deal with. Who had been so foolish as to put an order of _monks_ in charge of an army? And not just an army, but army of perfect soldiers genetically engineered for perfect obedience. Of course they fell into corruption, just like the Republic they served.

Religion, the new Emperor says, has no place in government.

Once upon a time, Obi-Wan would have found that highly amusing.

Now, every video and holo of the Emperor shows a dark clad, masked figure at his side, and even though the cold recordings Obi-Wan knows him. Even if he hadn't gotten intelligence from Organa... he knows who it is.

Thankfully, Tatooine doesn't get live-news from the Galaxy. Like Obi-Wan, it too is too far removed to matter.

* * *

 

Once a week, Obi-Wan forces himself to head to the Lars farm. Not close enough to be seen, he never goes to visit. It's not that he's unwelcome; he even gets the impression that they might like him – they definitely pity him... but he can't.

Luke Skywalker is one year old now and his hair is sun bleached and sandy brown, just like his father's was, before the artificial light fixtures of Coruscant and thousands of space ships drained it of its light. Over the sands of the farm, his laughter echoes, loud and free and unhindered, as he plays with whatever he can make a toy out of on the hardy farm. The Lars family love him.

Obi-Wan keeps his distance, hovering by the rocky cliffs at the very edge and staying only long enough to glimpse the boy, to see him well and happy – and then he goes away again, before he can think too deeply of it.

* * *

 

The realization comes slowly.

He doesn't just get up one morning and decide that he's lost his faith – there is no moment where his world shifts. Rather it slinks in slowly over weeks, over months, as he meditates less and less, as he stops even thinking about performing his katas, as he stops trying to keep up with his old habits.

Slowly, the reality settles in around him, like the Empire settles over the galaxy, an inexorable hopelessness.

And like so many things now, it makes no difference.

* * *

 

Yoda had said that Qui-Gon had achieved Oneness with the Force. Maybe he had. Obi-Wan couldn't feel it, couldn't sense him, and couldn't hear him. Force was still there, as it always had been – and it is no less light, no more dark, than it had ever been. Jedi were gone, Sith rule the galaxy, and Force remains the same. Unchanged.

For a while Obi-Wan thought that this, this was the Balance the Chosen One of the Force was supposed to bring. For a while he thought that the Jedi were the unbalanced factor in the Galaxy which they, in their own righteous superiority, hadn't seen. Too much Light and not enough Dark – so Anakin had balanced everything. Jedi were gone now, dwindled down to _two_ as far as Obi-Wan knows and in balance with the two Sith that now ruled the Galaxy... perfectly balanced, on the razor edge of abyss.

But nothing in Force had changed. It was the same it always had been, the same it had been everywhere Obi-Wan had reached for it. It was... just there. The death of thousands of Jedi had had little impact on it, once their screams had passed and the Force had settled. The rule of Sith had little impact on it, even as they spread their darkness across the galaxy, infecting everything with _evil_.

"Evil," Obi-Wan murmurs, the first thing he's spoken in weeks in the silence of his hut.

He thinks of the news, of the galactic events as they funnel down to Tatooine, what little they learn about it. There must be thousands of atrocities going on throughout the galaxy's millions of worlds, that they will never hear about in Tatooine. Millions of people dead, their corpses piled upon those of the Jedi, that the Empire was expertly covering up.

Evil, Obi-Wan thinks, and reaches for the Force.

It doesn't feel Evil to him – and perhaps... that is the problem he now has with it.

* * *

 

Some days are worse than others. No day is really good, anymore. There aren't days he doesn't feel the sabre that cut through his thigh. There aren't days where he doesn't feel the sting of old torture. He can count the blaster burns by how much they ache each day.

Bacta's regenerative properties have their limits, it seems, and the cycle of hot and cold in Tatooine seems to strip layers off old healing, bringing old scars to the forefront as the flesh around them grows wearier.

His hair is going white now. He's not sure if it's the twin suns or if he's missing something vital in his diet – the mineral and vitamin supplements he takes are definitely not enough to maintain his usual health, not with the constant stress Tatooine puts his body under. At his temples and on the top, his hair is not only bleaching of it's colour under the sun, but it is loosing its pigment as it grows. His beard, he notices as he trims it, has streaks of white in it.

Worse yet, his vision has started to grow blurry thanks to the glare of the suns.

What a reward he gets for a hard life of servitude.

Another unworthy thought he doesn't release into the Force anymore. Instead he takes it and examines it at length, peering at the weary bitterness it belies, at what it tells about him. Both that he is loosing some of what might pass for grace under pressure… and that he is still strong enough to feel bitter. It is highly un-Jedi like at any rate.

He should – he _should_ do better. Luke will grow older, one day he will be old enough to be trained – one day... Obi-Wan would have to take him as his padawan, or all of this would be for nothing. He should do better now and try and hold onto his training, onto his discipline, onto his.... faith.

A Jedi does nothing for a reward – this situation he is in is neither a reward nor a punishment and he deserves neither because that is not what the Force is for. It doesn't _reward_ devotion. And he has never been devoted because he searched for reward.

And yet, it feels undeserved. It feels... unfair.

Obi-Wan trims his beard and watches white push from under the ginger. He's not even forty yet, he thinks, running a hand over his beard.

Already he looks older than Qui-Gon, at seventy, ever had.

* * *

 

There is no Will of the Force.

That is the realization Obi-Wan has come to, his new heresy and faithlessness.

It had always been a more vague aspect of the Force, something not quite written down – but it been the belief that sat at the heart of the Jedi Order. It was the unspoken Core of their Code, because the Code only works if the Force has a Will.

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.

Without a Will of the Force, the Code is an empty vow of inaction and indifference – of self centrist meditation on peace and nothing else. After all, the Code denies everything, except the Force. But the Jedi weren't merely monks dedicated to a life of meditation – they were more than that, and they did more than that. They acted; they made decisions – galactically important decisions. Their actions had _enormous_ consequences.

And so, Will of the Force was demanded – a higher guiding authority of the Will of the Force was _necessary_ for the Jedi Order to function. So, by sheer necessity forced by their own actions, the Jedi had Faith and they Believed. They _trusted_ that the Will of the Force guided them, and so as long as they trusted the Will of the Force, they could do no wrong. Their actions still had consequences but so as long as they followed Force's guidance... their actions would be just.

Will of the Force had them, and it would take care of them. If they made mistakes, it was according to the Will of the Force. If they were injured, it was as Will of the Force had deemed it. If they died, it was as Will of the Force had decided.

But there is no Will of the Force.

It is a mindless force of nature – an intangible energy field that binds the Galaxy together with no will of its own. Some people can touch it, interact with it, even use it, but that didn't make it intelligent. Its power is undeniable, and even in his new lack of faith Obi-Wan doesn't deny its sheer might. The Force reaches into the past and into the future, that he knows for a fact, through the Force one can see visions of those times... but that is all they are. Visions. Not guidance.

The Force doesn't guide, it doesn't will, and it doesn't lead.

The Force just... is.

Obi-Wan contemplates on the nature of Force as a mindless energy field for a long while, as the suns set and the cold descends on his hut. It seems the cold seeps right into him, sinking into his bones even faster than before but for once... it doesn't feel like punishment. Because the Force doesn't punish those that fail its designs.

If there is no Will of the Force, them there is no Destiny. There is no Fate.

And there are no Chosen Ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something new for a change.


	8. Certain point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ben Kenobi travels back in time to a turning point in history.

Now where is he? He can't remember this place off hand. Captured, obviously – he's floating a good meter in air over a ray shield generator, bound up in its force field, unable to move so much as a finger. The only part of him still mobile is his head, and even that he can only turn the slightest amount while the ray shield gently turns him around, spinning him leisurely on an invisible axis like a mannequin on a display case.

Ben looks around himself, trying to place the setting. How many times had he been captured in this exact entrapment during the clone wars? Too many to really wish to count it, really. This doesn't look like a ship which narrows the options down somewhat, though he can't place the architecture around himself. Stone, carefully carved, alien. He can almost recognize it – but it's been so many years now… it's been decades.

Closing his eyes, Ben tries to reach for the Force – but that doesn't help much. All he can sense is… chaos. That old, clouded chaos of the Pre-Empire times, when Force had been so muddy and so strange, filled with mixed signals and false premonitions. It's odd, feeling it now with the power of hindsight and nearly twenty years of training in opening himself to the Force in ways that went beyond the Jedi Order's teachings. It almost makes him feel dirty.

There are life forms about. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of life forms. A planet, then – but which one, at what point of time?

He'd aimed for a time when he could make the biggest difference into the course of future, to change it for better. He'd expected to find himself a padawan again, meeting Anakin Skywalker for the first time on that dated Naboo Mission, where pieces started falling to their damned, destined places and their doom was set into motion. Qui-Gon dead, Senator Palpatine just starting his reign over the Senate and the Republic… Anakin bitter with freedom with Padme Amidala standing as his shining, perfect, impossible goal. Opening notes of a symphony that turned into cacophony which turned into Imperial March one day.

That, Ben had felt, was the point where future could be derailed – where everything could be changed. It would happen at the cost of Luke and his sister, perhaps at the cost of thousands and millions of lives that would not be born, but… to stop the Empire before it could ever be conceived would be worth _everything_.

But that is not where he is.

He's not the padawan he had hoped to find himself as. He can feel it on his face alone – he has a beard. That places him at the very least five years after Qui-Gon's death. Perhaps more. That… changes things.

But when – and for that matter, where – is he?

His surroundings offer no more clues so Ben looks down at himself. Jedi tunics, utility belt, boots – nothing helpful there, he's never worn anything else and only switched to longer robes in Tatooine. He doesn't have armour on, though, therefore it's not the worst of Clone Wars yet – or it is and he's been stripped of the armour. Unhelpful.

Sighing Ben leans his head back a little – and then he feels it. His own hair, curling at the base of his neck. It's long. From the time when he'd thought to grow it out. But then that would mean –

A door opens and for a moment Ben can see creatures, spindly and insectoid – Genosians? And moment later, a white haired and bearded man in black steps into the chamber and the door closes behind him.

"Dooku?" Ben asks slowly.

Oh. He's in Geonosis, at the very beginning of the Clone Wars?

"Oh my friend," Dooku says. "This is a mistake, a terrible mistake. They've gone too far – it's madness."

Ben stares at him in confusion, trying to place the words. Had he met Dooku before now? And who had gone too far – oh, the man means the imprisonment. Obviously Ben has been captured.

Frowning a little Ben tries to remember why did he enter Geonosis in the first place before the first battle of Geonosis, he'd been the first Jedi there. The whole thing had rather lost its importance after, with the Clone Wars themselves, but he had… right, he had been in pursuit and pursued his target to Geonosis. Jango Fett – the template of the clones.

An important moment in history, completely overshadowed by the hellish battle that begun right after. He can almost see why he'd be here, instead of his Padawan years, but not quite. At this time, the Emperor is already the High Chancellor, well onto his way to emergency powers he'd never forfeit again. The senate is already mostly under Sidious' control.

Why is he here? This time makes no sense. He's _too late_ here.

Dooku watches him strangely when Ben says nothing, and in the end the captor speaks again. "Are you well?" Dooku says and walks around him as if to check he's unharmed. "I will petition immediately to have you released, I assure you – but if you have been mistreated."

"I feel no injuries," Ben says, rather distractedly while trying to scan his memories as to why _this_ would be the key turning point in history. "So I suppose I'm fine."

"You are taking this rather well," Dooku says, frowning slightly, as if this calm is unexpected. Probably is – in his youth Ben would have been more annoyed by the whole thing.

"Becoming emotional will hardly help me here," Ben says and gives him a thoughtful look. Dooku, Qui-Gon Jinn's master, Yoda's apprentice. One of the Lost Twenty. Obi-Wan had… not quite hated him, but he had disapproved him, severely, even before the Clone Wars. And in Clone Wars, Dooku had been the Enemy, plain and simple.

It had never made sense to him that one of Dooku's standing in the Jedi Order, with his Teaching Lineage, would fall to the dark side. Later, Ben hadn't paid much thought to it, it was merely one of those things that were part of the past and thus lost to his influence one way or the other, but now…

Dooku is older than Sidious – and yet Darth Tyranus was one of Sidious' unfortunate apprentices. Why? _How_?

"You have become a fine Jedi, Obi-Wan," Dooku says, giving him a solemn look. "It is a great pity we never had the time to come face to face before. Qui-Gon always spoke very highly of you."

"Did he, indeed?" Ben asks noncommittally – he can't for the life of him remember of Qui-Gon had ever mentioned Dooku.

"He did, we talked of you often," Dooku says and looks away – and his grief feels… genuine. "I wish he was still alive. I could use his help now, and his wisdom."

Ben says nothing for a moment, wondering. Qui-Gon's wisdom had been considerable – and utterly unorthodox. What kind of Jedi went after the Secrets of Immortality, after all? What kind of Jedi _achieved_ it? Had Dooku known about Qui-Gon's… extracurricular studies, his search for mastery over powers that went so wildly beyond the scope of Jedi, even beyond the scope of the Sith? Had Qui-Gon spoken with Dooku about it?

"What would you need Qui-Gon's help with?" Ben asks slowly.

Dooku frowns a little and turns away, lifting his hands and then lowering them. "Qui-Gon knew all about the corruption of the senate," Dooku says slowly. "He would have never gone along with it if he knew the true extend of it. If he learned the truth as I have."

Ben arches an eyebrow but says nothing.

Dooku glances at him, gauges his attentiveness, and then continues, looking away again. "What if I told you that the Republic is now under the control of a Dark Lord of the Sith?" he asks.

Ben's arched brow descends and he frowns. That was… unexpected. Had Dooku told him that before? Had this happened in past – had he hung here, helpless while Dooku admitted that to him? How had he reacted?

With disbelief, Ben thinks wryly. At this point in time, his reaction would have been disbelief and denial and quite bit of suspicion.

Dooku looks to him for a reaction and Ben schools his expression into more neutral arrangement. "A Sith," he repeats.

"A Sith Lord," Dooku says slowly. "Hundreds of Senators are now influenced by the Dark Side, doing as he wills them – voting as Darth Sidious requires them. And each day his power within the Senate grows."

Ben stares at him silently for a long time, wondering. It could very well be a ploy – but to what end? Why would Dooku tell him this, why would he reveal this terrible truth? He was a Sith himself and under Sidious' control, isn't he? Revealing this _now_ , at the verge of the Clone Wars, doesn't make any sense…

Unless he isn't under Sidious' control, yet.

"Why are you telling me this?" Ben asks quietly.

Dooku frowns up at him. "I need your help," he says and scowls, a sudden feverishness coming to his face at Ben's apparent compliance. "You must join me, Obi-Wan – and together we will destroy the Sith!"

Ben says nothing for a while, just watching him. Well _that_ , if nothing else, is the Dark Side speaking. Dooku might not be fully under Sidious' control yet, but there is Dark within him. And yet, this whole set up, revealing Sidious like this…

This had happened before, Ben is starting to remember now. And last time, Obi-Wan had denied everything, disregarded every word, and happily mistrusted everything. The Jedi couldn't possibly miss something as big as this, he thought; surely they would've sensed it…

But in this murky atmosphere of the Force, how could anyone sense _anything_?

"What say you, my friend?" Dooku says and straightens his shoulders.

"I think I am likely here for a reason," Ben muses. Obi-Wan Kenobi – the Separatist. That would change the history, wouldn't it?


	9. Racing Entropy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan joins the Force - but doesn't become part of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of existential horror here

Obi-Wan rises.

It's… not exactly accurate, but it's closest to the concept he can get. It's like being broken, but upwards, rising from the grounded, gravity bound level of mortality into something else, something larger and wider and grander than anything he could touch as a mortal man. Though he'd brushed against it over the years, nothing he knew before compares.

He is becoming part of the Force. It is… incredible.

" _Obi-Wan_ ," a voice speaks – or a concept of a voice, a thought, a feeling. His whole being condensed into a word, a concept under a title, which caries with it years of fondness and about as much regret, with knowledge and memories whirling around it like colours, like winds. Everything he's ever been and everything he will no longer be, compressed into a single point.

"Qui-Gon," he answers, and his thought doesn't quite echo the same. He's not _there_ yet. But he puts in it his sentiments, his regrets, his relief as much as he can, and though it's not on _that_ level of joining yet, he can feel Qui-Gon's returning fondness at the attempt.

"Come," Qui-Gon says and reaches for him. "Let me show you. There is much for you to see."

Obi-Wan reaches back – and then stops.

Behind him, there is… Vader. The absence of Anakin Skywalker, given human form. Further still, there is Luke, and all the regretful could-have-beens the boy carries on his shoulder. At his side, Leia Organa, whom Obi-Wan had never gotten the chance to know – but who, he knows, carries with in her those could-have-beens as well. Threads of timelines that were lost, so long ago.

"No," he says and turns. "I want to see this, first."

Qui-Gon hovers about him like a cloud, shapeless and weightless, while Obi-Wan stands upon what remains of his mortal form – his clothes, his lightsaber, nothing else. Vader is kicking at the clothes and Luke is screaming – how very odd how the whole thing resonates back. It reminds him of so many moments, so many things.

Qui-Gon had died in such a similar way. True enough, Obi-Wan and Luke hadn't had such close bond as he and his Master had, but the similarities are there. They hurt.

One would think that he'd be beyond _hurting_ once finally over this last, final, terrible hurdle.

"Emotions are all we have, now," Qui-Gon whispers and Obi-Wan can feel him struggle to gain a more concrete form. He coalescences into a shape, manifesting into a man beside Obi-Wan, and it takes tremendous amount of effort from him – so much so, that the very Force stretches about them. Qui-Gon's presence waxes and wanes, as if inhaling and exhaling, and then he settles.

Obi-Wan _looks_ at him and into him, and that hurts a little too. "All the things we were so wrong about," he says and shakes his head. "So scared of our own sapience, our sentience, our emotions. Not daring to care or love, at the risk of fall. And yet here – and it's all the other way around, isn't it?"

Qui-Gon bows his head a little in quiet acknowledgement of the regret and then looks up. Time is passing – but it is also standing utterly still. It doesn't matter to them anymore, as much. Vader is frozen in the act of lifting Obi-Wan's lightsaber from the floor with the Force. What he would do with it, Obi-Wan can't quite tell. Destroy it, break it, tear it apart atom by atom... or enshrine it somewhere where it would forever remind him of his victory…?

"You must let go of it," Qui-Gon says gently and _touches_ him. It's not a physical touch, more an emotional bond given shape, a closeness like no other. "Regrets will only hold you back."

Obi-Wan breathes that contact in for a moment, gaining strength from it. Then he leans into it, and he can feel the Force _flow_ through Qui-Gon. Somewhere, Alderaan is still being destroyed. Somewhere, the Death Star explodes in magnificent display of brilliant light while Luke flies away, triumphant. The Emperor dies and Anakin follows.

Obi-Wan leans in and he can feel a small moon of Yavin destroyed instead. Luke follows his father to the dark side, and spends years chasing his own sister down, finally destroying her on an icy world. The Emperor remains, eternal, and the Galactic Empire stands until it falls at hands of a invasion force.

Yet further _elsewhere_ it all falls apart, Empire and what remains of the Republic both, and the future lays in shatters, clusters of star systems trying to thrive for cohesion in a ruined galaxy. From those ashes a new order, the First Order, rises and picks up the slack of the Empire.

And elsewhere, it is the Republic that rises, trying for democracy and failing because the base work is no longer there – the galaxy is primed for tyranny, and tyranny it gets, as Leia Organa becomes the first Empress of the Galaxy, her path to galactic domination inescapable and unavoidable.

Obi-Wan breathes the possibilities in and exhales regret. "None of it's set in stone," he whispers as the potential futures spread out in front of him, some more likely than others, but all entirely feasible. "The future is in flux."

"Nothing is pre-destined," Qui-Gon agrees. "But things happen because of the things that came before. All affects everything."

"Cause and effect," Obi-Wan muses.

Time moves again. Luke and the others escape the Death Star – have escaped, will escape – and Vader picks up Obi-Wan's lightsaber, turning it in his hand slowly. His dissatisfaction is immense, aimed at nothing and everything, and it makes the Force roil around him like a small, concentrated storm. He wanted to make Obi-Wan suffer, wanted to draw it out and take his pleasure from making his old Master experience exactly what he had over the many painful years.

He wanted to save Obi-Wan's life.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan whispers. He can see backwards into Vader, into his friend, into his student – into a child of Tatooine, who'd come to them with all the hope in the galaxy, and who'd slowly been worn to a stretched nothingness by the Jedi Order. "If only we'd known then what we know now..."

Qui-Gon says nothing, his emotions piercing through Obi-Wan like the lightsaber that might've killed him, had he not let go before it had the chance to. Regret and knowledge and acceptance and inevitability – potential and temptation.

Is it possible...

Obi-Wan turns to him, and watches Qui-Gon recoil. "No," Qui-Gon says quickly. "Obi-Wan do not think it – it will only hold you back."

"There is a way," Obi-Wan says in wonder. "There is. Any time now you could go back. I could go back and change it."

"It will only hold you back," Qui-Gon says again and draws him closer. "And it will not change what happened here. Stretch out with your feelings and see it," he says and rests a hand on Obi-Wan's head, turning his thoughts away from this sudden tempting hope – and into whole different universes.

There, things played out differently. Qui-Gon directed the Naboo ship elsewhere, and they never landed on Tatooine. Anakin Skywalker remained a slave and never became a Jedi, never knew any of them – never killed any younglings at the Jedi Temple. He remained bound to the end of his days, while elsewhere the Empire rose

And another universe, this one darker still. Darth Maul finds Anakin first and siezes that opportunity terribly – siezes the boy with a Force Grip around Watto's throat, forcing him to let the boy go. Anakin grows in darkness, he grows terrible – he grows cruel. Sidious dies at his hands ans Maul soon follows and Anakin spends the rest of his life hunting down Force users, consumed by his own hatered for the thing that made him.

Another universe, where Sidious is the one to find Anakin. Anakin becomes his apprentice early on, his terrible sharp tool, and Jedi after Jedi vanish at the swing of Anakin's red lightsaber blade.

Another, where Anakin is bought by the Hutts, who discover his force abilities, who make terrible, insidious use of them. He becomes a hitman and assassin and when the knowledge of his abilities spead the Jedi Order make taking him out a priority. In that universe, there is no man better at killing jedi, than Anakin Skywalker. In that universe, he becomes a template for an army of clones.

Another, where Anakin makes a scanner to try and locate his slave chip, and ends up accidentally maiming himself for life. His freedom his thus won with pain and bitterness and he builds himself up from it into something terrible. He blames the Hutts, he blames the Republic – he hates with ferocity that puts even Vader to shame. The Slave Empire he builds is a terrible and wondrous thing, and it sweeps over the galaxy like a plague.

Another, and another, and another…

Obi-Wan trembles.

"These realities exist and none of them affect this one," Qui-Gon says gently.

"Show me one where he's happy," Obi-Wan begs.

Qui-Gon hesitates and his fingers brush into Obi-Wan's hair, his thoughts into his mind. Then he draws his hand away and Obi-Wan opens his eyes again, stretching out his feelings. Qui-Gon looks down at him with eyes full of regret and bows his head.

Somewhere, the Death Star looms over Yavin 4 and Luke is racing down it's length, towards the access port. He won't make the shot, not like that. Obi-Wan let's it distract him just for a moment, just long enough for the terrible realisation to settle. "Use the Force Luke," Obi-Wan says. "Let go."

The explosion won't kill Vader, he knows, the Sith is on a star fighter and safe.

In some universes, though, he is on board the Death Stars, and dies with it.

In universes further away, the Emperor is there too, and dies with him.

Obi-Wan breathes through it, and then they're on the Death Star again, and Vader is holding his lightsaber, and Luke and Han and the others are about to make their escape. Qui-Gon stands before him, the hems of his cloak, build from memory more than anything, frayinh into the Force. Staying here for him, after so many years, is hard.

"Is there no universe where Anakin Skywalker gets a happy ending?" Obi-Wan asks quietly.

"Anakin Skywalker is the Chosen One," Qui-Gon says simply. "Force made him to bring Balance to the universe. His destiny is never an easy one."

Obi-Wan bows his head. "Why?" he asks. "Why must there be a balance? Why must this be forced when there is no Destiny and no Fate - why then is there a Destinied One?"

Qui-Gon sighs and looks away – into time and space, into other universes. "Because," he says. "We are forcing imbalance in the Force."

Reaching out, he shows the mistakes made, the errors flung all about the universe – the gaps they'd made. All things race towards entropy, that is the natural order of _everything_ – including Force itself. It thrived in Entropy.

"We called it chaos and disorder," Qui-Gon says. "Because we could not understand universe on that level. Just because we are beings of order, to us it seems like turmoil. But it isn't. A Force in state of entropy is in balance. An even system, where energy is stable. Nothing coming… nothing going."

"I don't understand," Obi-Wan whispers.

"Not yet. You will, in time," Qui-Gon says and his presence waxes and wanes with a mental inhale and exhale. "We were forcing an imbalance of Light in the Force. And so the Force made itself a catalyst. Now, the Force is once more racing towards entropy, into a balanced system. In …"

He trails away and his mental presence _frowns_. Obi-Wan follows his vision away from the Death Star and the past and Anakin Skywalker – into future. Together, they push through it - to the final conclusion.

The Force would take millennia to reach it's ideal entropic state. It would be a path of war after war after war, Dark side and Light side rising and falling in turn, rocking the balance from side to side, on and on – until finally… all sentient _living_ life would be wiped from the galaxy, and there would be no one left to affect the Force.

"That can't be the ideal state," Obi-Wan whispers in horror. It's a dark galaxy, a cold galaxy.

"I…" Qui-Gon's thoughts warp around the concept like it has a gravity. _I_ , myself, as thing with will and thoughts, as person of will and individuality – the Jedi Order and all it's teachings wrap around the thought of _self_ and all of it, all he is, _rebels_. "I don't know," he admits, and his confusion is terrible.

For a moment they stare at that cold, terrible future – and then they're back in the Death Star and Qui-Gon's presence is full of unease and confusion.

He hadn't been able to see that far before - all he'd seen was Force moving towards Balance, not what that Balance ultimately meant for the Galaxy.

Obi-Wan looks away – at Vader, who is holding his lightsaber, standing over the pile of clothes that was all Obi-Wan had left behind when he'd joined the force. Somewhere behind them, Luke and Han and the others are making their escape.

"There has to be another way," he says. "That can't be our future. This," he reaches out for Vader, for Anakin, for the bright child he'd once been. "This can't be our present."

Qui-Gon says nothing, his presence breaking apart at the edges as he struggles to comprehend what he'd glimpsed.

"Obi-Wan," he says, and _oh_ the meaning and sentiment it carries. "You are stronger than I am."

"I am," Obi-Wan asks and states and knows, all at once. He is. Qui-Gon had died before he had managed to master his understanding, his joining had been… incomplete, a struggle against the pull of death and nothingness. Struggle against mindless entropy, Obi-Wan thinks, that awaits for everyone else that dies. To join the Force is to fight that entropy, in a way, all the while joining it faster.

Obi-Wan on other hand had spent years training for this. He'd trained to let go, but something about how he'd done it was different. He'd retained his individuality at higher, firmer level, holding onto his own will in way Qui-Gon hadn't gotten the chance to. Perhaps it is different for all who join the Force, perhaps once Yoda would join them he would be more different still… but there is a barrier between Obi-Wan and the eventual entropy of Force. His presence in the Force is… coherent in a way that had taken Qui-Gon years to achieve again.

He is stronger.

Obi-Wan inhales, drawing Force in. "I'm going back," he says, decision made and already radiating into the Force, it's influence fast and spreading. "I will not accept this fate. I _will not_."

Qui-Gon says nothing for a moment, his presence hesitant – he's almost broken apart now, and part of him is reaching back to the oneness with the Force, where he's been part of it's flow for years. It is almost a physical pain to be apart from it for him – but now he knows where it will lead. Over time, over centuries and eons, it would grind him to nothing. Like ocean waves on shoreline cliffs, the entropy of the Force would wear down what made him Qui-Gon until nothing but the Force would remain.

"Yes," he agrees, and it's full of aching pain. "You're right."

"Come with me," Obi-Wan says, reaching for him, pulling him in turn. Qui-Gon is an immaterial concept, barely holding his shape now, but he leans in to it. "Don't go back there."

"Yes," Qui-Gon says again, trembling against him, shaking apart. " _Yes_."

Drawing him in gratefully, Obi-Wan steps back – and out of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started out as "what if Obi-Wan ans Qui-Gon both went back in time" but then my childhood nightmares about entropy consuming the universe leaked in. Oops.


	10. Racing Entropy, extended

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some existential horror and soul bond stuff.  
> Preslash kinda

Obi-Wan rises.

It's… not exactly accurate, but it's closest to the concept he can get. It's like being broken, but upwards, rising from the grounded, gravity bound level of mortality into something else, something larger and wider and grander than anything he could touch as a mortal man. Though he'd brushed against it over the years, nothing he knew before compares.

He is becoming part of the Force. It is… incredible.

" _Obi-Wan_ ," a voice speaks – or a concept of a voice, a thought, a feeling. His whole being condensed into a word, a concept under a title, which caries with it years of fondness and about as much regret, with knowledge and memories whirling around it like colours, like winds. Everything he's ever been and everything he will no longer be, compressed into a single point.

"Qui-Gon," he answers, and his thought doesn't quite echo the same. He's not _there_ yet. But he puts in it his sentiments, his regrets, his relief as much as he can, and though it's not on _that_ level of joining yet, he can feel Qui-Gon's returning fondness at the attempt.

"Come," Qui-Gon says and reaches for him. "Let me show you. There is much for you to see."

Obi-Wan reaches back – and then stops.

Behind him, there is… Vader. The absence of Anakin Skywalker, given human form. Further still, there is Luke, and all the regretful could-have-beens the boy carries on his shoulder. At his side, Leia Organa, whom Obi-Wan had never gotten the chance to know – but who, he knows, carries with in her those could-have-beens as well. Threads of timelines that were lost, so long ago.

"No," he says and turns. "I want to see this, first."

Qui-Gon hovers about him like a cloud, shapeless and weightless, while Obi-Wan stands upon what remains of his mortal form – his clothes, his lightsaber, nothing else. Vader is kicking at the clothes and Luke is screaming – how very odd how the whole thing resonates back. It reminds him of so many moments, so many things.

Qui-Gon had died in such a similar way. True enough, Obi-Wan and Luke hadn't had such close bond as he and his Master had, but the similarities are there. They hurt.

One would think that he'd be beyond _hurting_ once finally over this last, final, terrible hurdle.

"Emotions are all we have, now," Qui-Gon whispers and Obi-Wan can feel him struggle to gain a more concrete form. He coalescences into a shape, manifesting into a man beside Obi-Wan, and it takes tremendous amount of effort from him – so much so, that the very Force stretches about them. Qui-Gon's presence waxes and wanes, as if inhaling and exhaling, and then he settles.

Obi-Wan _looks_ at him and into him, and that hurts a little too. "All the things we were so wrong about," he says and shakes his head. "So scared of our own sapience, our sentience, our emotions. Not daring to care or love, at the risk of fall. And yet here – and it's all the other way around, isn't it?"

Qui-Gon bows his head a little in quiet acknowledgement of the regret and then looks up. Time is passing – but it is also standing utterly still. It doesn't matter to them anymore, as much. Vader is frozen in the act of lifting Obi-Wan's lightsaber from the floor with the Force. What he would do with it, Obi-Wan can't quite tell. Destroy it, break it, tear it apart atom by atom… or enshrine it somewhere where it would forever remind him of his victory…?

"You must let go of it," Qui-Gon says gently and _touches_ him. It's not a physical touch, more an emotional bond given shape, a closeness like no other. "Regrets will only hold you back."

Obi-Wan breathes that contact in for a moment, gaining strength from it. Then he leans into it, and he can feel the Force _flow_ through Qui-Gon. Somewhere, Alderaan is still being destroyed. Somewhere, the Death Star explodes in magnificent display of brilliant light while Luke flies away, triumphant. The Emperor dies and Anakin follows.

Obi-Wan leans in and he can feel a small moon of Yavin destroyed instead. Luke follows his father to the dark side, and spends years chasing his own sister down, finally destroying her on an icy world. The Emperor remains, eternal, and the Galactic Empire stands until it falls at hands of an invasion force.

Yet further _elsewhere_ it all falls apart, Empire and what remains of the Republic both, and the future lays in shatters, clusters of star systems trying to thrive for cohesion in a ruined galaxy. From those ashes a new order, the First Order, rises and picks up the slack of the Empire.

And elsewhere, it is the Republic that rises, trying for democracy and failing because the base work is no longer there – the galaxy is primed for tyranny, and tyranny it gets, as Leia Organa becomes the first Empress of the Galaxy, her path to galactic domination inescapable and unavoidable.

Obi-Wan breathes the possibilities in and exhales regret. "None of it's set in stone," he whispers as the potential futures spread out in front of him, some more likely than others, but all entirely feasible. "The future is in flux."

"Nothing is pre-destined," Qui-Gon agrees. "But things happen because of the things that came before. All affects everything."

"Cause and effect," Obi-Wan muses.

Time moves again. Luke and the others escape the Death Star – have escaped, will escape – and Vader picks up Obi-Wan's lightsaber, turning it in his hand slowly. His dissatisfaction is immense, aimed at nothing and everything, and it makes the Force roil around him like a small, concentrated storm. He wanted to make Obi-Wan suffer, wanted to draw it out and take his pleasure from making his old Master experience exactly what he had over the many painful years.

He wanted to save Obi-Wan's life.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan whispers. He can see backwards into Vader, into his friend, into his student – into a child of Tatooine, who'd come to them with all the hope in the galaxy, and who'd slowly been worn to a stretched nothingness by the Jedi Order. "If only we'd known then what we know now…"

Qui-Gon says nothing, his emotions piercing through Obi-Wan like the lightsaber that might've killed him, had he not let go before it had the chance to. Regret and knowledge and acceptance and inevitability – potential and temptation.

Is it possible…

Obi-Wan turns to him, and watches Qui-Gon recoil. "No," Qui-Gon says quickly. "Obi-Wan do not think it – it will only hold you back."

"There is a way," Obi-Wan says in wonder. "There is. Any time now you could go back. I could go back and change it."

"It will only hold you back," Qui-Gon says again and draws him closer. "And it will not change what happened here. Stretch out with your feelings and see it," he says and rests a hand on Obi-Wan's head, turning his thoughts away from this sudden tempting hope – and into whole different universes.

There, things played out differently. Qui-Gon directed the Naboo ship elsewhere, and they never landed on Tatooine. Anakin Skywalker remained a slave and never became a Jedi, never knew any of them – never killed any younglings at the Jedi Temple. He remained bound to the end of his days, while elsewhere the Empire rose

And another universe, this one darker still. Darth Maul finds Anakin first and seizes that opportunity terribly – seizes the boy with a Force Grip around Watto's throat, forcing him to let the boy go. Anakin grows in darkness, he grows terrible – he grows cruel. Sidious dies at his hands and Maul soon follows and Anakin spends the rest of his life hunting down Force users, consumed by his own hatred for the thing that made him.

Another universe, where Sidious is the one to find Anakin. Anakin becomes his apprentice early on, his terrible sharp tool, and Jedi after Jedi vanish at the swing of Anakin's red lightsaber blade.

Another, where Anakin is bought by the Hutts, who discover his Force abilities, who make terrible, insidious use of them. He becomes a hit man and assassin and when the knowledge of his abilities spread the Jedi Order make taking him out a priority. In that universe, there is no man better at killing Jedi, than Anakin Skywalker. In that universe, he becomes a template for an army of clones.

Another, where Anakin makes a scanner to try and locate his slave chip, and ends up accidentally maiming himself for life. His freedom his thus won with pain and bitterness and he builds himself up from it into something terrible. He blames the Hutts, he blames the Republic – he hates with ferocity that puts even Vader to shame. The Slave Empire he builds is a terrible and wondrous thing, and it sweeps over the galaxy like a plague.

Another, and another, and another…

Obi-Wan trembles.

"These realities exist and none of them affect this one," Qui-Gon says gently.

"Show me one where he's happy," Obi-Wan begs.

Qui-Gon hesitates and his fingers brush into Obi-Wan's hair, his thoughts into his mind. Then he draws his hand away and Obi-Wan opens his eyes again, stretching out his feelings. Qui-Gon looks down at him with eyes full of regret and bows his head.

Somewhere, the Death Star looms over Yavin 4 and Luke is racing down its length, towards the access port. He won't make the shot, not like that. Obi-Wan let's it distract him just for a moment, just long enough for the terrible realisation to settle. "Use the Force Luke," Obi-Wan says. "Let go."

The explosion won't kill Vader, he knows, the Sith is on a star fighter and safe.

In some universes, though, he is on board the Death Stars, and dies with it.

In universes further away, the Emperor is there too, and dies with him.

Obi-Wan breathes through it, and then they're on the Death Star again, and Vader is holding his lightsaber, and Luke and Han and the others are about to make their escape. Qui-Gon stands before him, the hems of his cloak, build from memory more than anything, fraying into the Force. Staying here for him, after so many years, is hard.

"Is there no universe where Anakin Skywalker gets a happy ending?" Obi-Wan asks quietly.

"Anakin Skywalker is the Chosen One," Qui-Gon says simply. "Force made him to bring Balance to the universe. His destiny is never an easy one."

Obi-Wan bows his head. "Why?" he asks. "Why must there be a balance? Why must this be forced when there is no Destiny and no Fate – why then is there a Destined One?"

Qui-Gon sighs and looks away – into time and space, into other universes. "Because," he says. "We are forcing an Imbalance in the Force."

Reaching out, he shows the mistakes made, the errors flung all about the universe – the gaps they'd made. All things race towards entropy, that is the natural order of _everything_ – including Force itself. It thrived in Entropy.

"We called it chaos and disorder," Qui-Gon says. "Because we could not understand universe on that level. Just because we are beings of order, to us it seems like turmoil. But it isn't. A Force in state of entropy is in balance. An even system, where energy is stable. Nothing coming… nothing going."

"I don't understand," Obi-Wan whispers.

"Not yet. You will, in time," Qui-Gon says and his presence waxes and wanes with a mental inhale and exhale. "We were forcing an imbalance of Light in the Force. And so the Force made itself a catalyst. Now, the Force is once more racing towards entropy, into a balanced system. In …"

He trails away and his mental presence _frowns_. Obi-Wan follows his vision away from the Death Star and the past and Anakin Skywalker – into future. Together, they push through it – to our final conclusion.

The Force would take millennia to reach its ideal entropic state. It would be a path of war after war after war, Dark side and Light side rising and falling in turn, rocking the balance from side to side, on and on – until finally… all sentient _living_ life would be wiped from the galaxy, and there would be no one left to affect the Force.

"That can't be the ideal state," Obi-Wan whispers in horror. It's a dark galaxy, a cold galaxy.

"I…" Qui-Gon's thoughts warp around the concept like it has a gravity. _I_ , myself, as thing with will and thoughts, as person of will and individuality – the Jedi Order and all its teachings wrap around the thought of _self_ and all of it, all he is, _rebels_. "I don't know," he admits, and his confusion is terrible.

For a moment they stare at that cold, terrible future – and then they're back in the Death Star and Qui-Gon's presence is full of unease and confusion.

He hadn't been able to see that far before – all he'd seen was Force moving towards Balance, not what that Balance ultimately meant for the Galaxy.

Obi-Wan looks away – at Vader, who is holding his lightsaber, standing over the pile of clothes that was all Obi-Wan had left behind when he'd joined the Force. Somewhere behind them, Luke and Han and the others are making their escape.

"There has to be another way," he says. "That can't be our future. This," he reaches out for Vader, for Anakin, for the bright child he'd once been. "This can't be our present."

Qui-Gon says nothing, his presence breaking apart at the edges as he struggles to comprehend what he'd glimpsed.

"Obi-Wan," he says, and _oh_ the meaning and sentiment it carries. "You are stronger than I am."

"I am," Obi-Wan asks and states and knows, all at once. He is. Qui-Gon had died before he had managed to master his understanding, his joining had been… incomplete, a struggle against the pull of death and nothingness. Struggle against mindless entropy, Obi-Wan thinks, that awaits for everyone else that dies. To join the Force is to fight that entropy, in a way, all the while joining it faster.

Obi-Wan on other hand had spent years training for this. He'd trained to let go, but something about how he'd done it was different. He'd retained his individuality at higher, firmer level, holding onto his own will in way Qui-Gon hadn't gotten the chance to. Perhaps it is different for all who join the Force, perhaps once Yoda would join them he would be more different still… but there is a barrier between Obi-Wan and the eventual entropy of Force. His presence in the Force is… coherent in a way that had taken Qui-Gon years to achieve again.

He is stronger.

Obi-Wan inhales, drawing Force in. "I'm going back," he says, decision made and already radiating into the Force, its influence spreading fast. "I will not accept this fate. I _will not_."

Qui-Gon says nothing for a moment, his presence hesitant – he's almost broken apart now, and part of him is reaching back to the oneness with the Force, where he's been part of its flow for years. It is almost a physical pain to be apart from it for him – but now he knows where it will lead. Over time, over centuries and eons, it would grind him to nothing. Like ocean waves on shoreline cliffs, the entropy of the Force would wear down what made him Qui-Gon until nothing but the Force would remain.

"Yes," he agrees, and it's full of aching pain. "You're right."

"Come with me," Obi-Wan says, reaching for him, pulling him in turn. Qui-Gon is an immaterial concept, barely holding his shape now, but he leans in to it. "Don't go back there."

"Yes," Qui-Gon says again, trembling against him, shaking apart " _Yes_."

Drawing him in gratefully, Obi-Wan steps back – and out of time.

-

"Move aside, young one."

Obi-Wan's head splits and he lets out a yelp of pain while in his arms, Qui-Gon convulsed in sudden agony. For a moment everything spins and he feels a terrible void in his head – a concept that seems to consume everything and nothing and all.

Then there is someone else there, in his head, pushing him aside and while Obi-Wan teeters on edge of collapse, the glowing someone in his head insinuated themselves into his body, taking control of his hands and his eyes, turning them to Qui-Gon – who is seizing in convulsions.

"Come to me," the Glowing Presence in Obi-Wan's head says and takes Qui-Gon by the head, bracing his palms on the sides of Obi-Wan's Master's temples, sinking his fingers into his long hair. "Come back to me, Qui-Gon. Follow me back."

Like a passenger in a spaceship he has no control over, Obi-Wan experiences the motion of his body moving forward, as the Glowing Someone presses his forehead against his Master's. The welling of Force and emotion is like a rising tide and it's full of warmth and love and regret and longing.

"Don't go that way. Come to me, come back to me," his mouth whispers. "I know it's hard but please. Come back to me."

The panic is secondary to the confusion and wonder because this feels like – like nothing he's ever felt before, this strength, this warmth. Then the panic races over it and Obi-Wan realises – the reason they're calling for his Master to come back is because his Master is dying. He'd been run through with a lightsaber and he's dying.

"Master," slips from Obi-Wan's lips and he's half surprised it gets through at all.

"Obi-Wan," his Master chokes back and it's barely a sound, so faint is his voice, barely a breath against his cheek. "I – I don't, I don't know if I can –"

He gasps and the Glowing Someone is there, Pulling at him with the Force. "You can – you must – you will," he says, and Obi-Wan can feel them. There's another person inside his Master and it's that person the Glowing Someone is urging on with words and Force. "We made it this far, Qui-Gon, don't you dare give up now."

"This body is –" Qui-Gon gasps and Obi-Wan finds himself pulling back to look – his eyes moving on their own, finding the saber burn on his Master's stomach.

"This is –" the Glowing Someone says and then stops and things flash by Obi-Wan so fast that he can barely comprehend them. Naboo, reactor, Maul, regret, pain, loss – Anakin –

Then he's pressing his hand on the bloody wound and pushing Force into it.

Qui-Gon gasps and his body twists. "Obi-Wan –"

"We figured out immortality and time travel, we can heal one little saber wound – now come on!" the Glowing Someone snaps, gripping with his – Obi-Wan's – other hand onto Qui-Gon's hair and tugging on it as if to physically force him to listen. "Stay with me, Qui-Gon – right here, right now, _stay_!"

Qui-Gon groans in pain and with effort clasps a bloodied hand over Obi-Wan's on his stomach, entwining their fingers together. It's a strange feeling, their Force mingling together, their effort blending into each other, until they are almost as if of one mind. Under the strange, alien harmony of pain and blood and healing and unfathomable regret – Obi-Wan can feel his Master.

Qui-Gon Jinn us as much a bystander to this as is he.

" _Master_?" Obi-Wan asks, through Force and thought rather than voice. " _What a happening? What is this_?"

" _I… don't know Obi-Wan – I_ –" Qui-Gon's presence wavers and then another tide of Force rises as the two strangers in control of their bodies force life into Qui-Gon.

" _Obi-Wan – if, if I don't make it – the boy_ –" Qui-Gon rushes to say. " _You must train the boy – he will bring Balance_ –"  
   
And the world tilts. Everything shifts out of alignment and Obi-Wan falls… somewhere. A terrible distant cold place, where nothing lives and nothing moves. His Master is there too, beside him, just as confused as he is – and there is his Master again, only it… isn't.

"What is this?" His Master asks from the Other Qui-Gon Jinn who glows with ethereal blue light in the dead darkness.

"Future," the Other Qui-Gon Jinn sighs. "A future, I should say. Now, more than ever, future isn't set in stone. This is the balance of the Force, the Balance Force is always moving towards. No Dark side, no Light side – no people to influence it. Only Entropy will remain."

Obi-Wan opens his mouth but hr can't think if anything to say. Future? Really?

"You are me," his Master says.

The Other Qui-Gon Jinn closes his eyes. "A version of you," he agrees tiredly. "One of many in a sea of possibilities."

"And that, that other one," Obi-Wan says. "That was another me?"

"A particularly stubborn version," the Other Qui-Gon says. "He is trying to pull us back."

And they are slammed back into their bodies, Obi-Wan reeling as he finds himself back in physical form and Qui-Gon – one of them or both of them – gasping for breath as Force crashes down on them.

The Glowing Someone – Obi-Wan's other self – gasps for breath and wavers, almost crashing to Qui-Gon as his strength gives up – his immense power spent. Obi-Wan catches their weight on the floor beside Qui-Gon's head and just like that he's in full control of his body.

"Master!" he gasps and turns his attention from the wavering presence in his mind and to Qui-Gon. "Master, are you alright?"

Qui-Gon draws a breath and then another and then his fingers twitch – still entwined with Obi-Wan's.

"I – believe I require some medical care," he says, his voice rough. "But I –" he frowns and shifts where he lies, putting his elbow under him, testing if he can move. "I should live."

"You better," Obi-Wan's mouth speaks but it's not him forming the words.

"Peace," the Other Qui-Gon Jinn answers softly. "I am here."

"Good," Other Obi-Wan Kenobi sighs. "Now come on, young one. Let's get him to medical."

-

It isn't until after they've landed and celebrated and all the remaining droids have been rounded up and secured that Anakin hears about Master Qui-Gon. The joy of space battle – of _winning_ a space battle – dies like someone cut it with a knife and then all Anakin can think is finding him.

Qui-Gon set him free – Qui-Gon is going to be his Jedi Master and teach him how to be a Jedi himself – if – if something happens to Qui-Gon, what will happen to him? Can Anakin even become a Jedi without Master Qui-Gon's help?

Anakin is swallowing down the bitter dread by the time he finally managed to find the infirmary – and there, Obi-Wan Kenobi who is sitting beside a bed and on that bed is Master Qui-Gon, lying on his side, stripped down to waist.

He has patch of what looks like bacta in his back – at least Anakin thinks it's bacta, he's never seen it in real life. On his front, there is a medical droid doing something to his stomach.

Doing some thing and bacta – that means he's alive and he's going to live, you don't waste medical stuff on people who are going to die, so Qui-Gon's going to live – except he's hurt, he's in infirmary and being treated and that's bad –

"Anakin," Obi-Wan says and holds out a hand. Anakin hesitates just a little because he doesn't know Obi-Wan so well and he isn't sure Obi-Wan really likes him all that much – but Obi-Wan is smiling a little and he feels…

Anakin runs to him and Obi-Wan automatically catches him with an arm around his shoulders. "Is he going to be alright?" Anakin asks hurriedly, looking at Qui-Gon – with the bacta patch he can't see what's wrong with him, but he's obviously hurt and badly too –

"He's going to be fine," Obi-Wan assures him and squeezes his shoulder gently. "A little banged up and he will have a scar or two maybe, but he will be just fine after little bit of downtime."

Anakin draws a breath and then relaxes. Going to be fine. "That's good," he says. "But what happened?"

"There was a battle," Obi-Wan says and looks at him. "Speaking of which…"

Anakin blinks – he knows that tone, Mom uses it all the time when Anakin has done something he probably shouldn't have. Obi-Wan even has the look. "It wasn't my fault," Anakin says quickly.

Obi-Wan arches a single eyebrow at him.

"It _wasn't_ – the ship was on autopilot and then the other ships started launching, it got launched to space too! I didn't do anything – except later, when we were already in space, but you can't really blame me for that. It was a battle; I had to do something it get blown to bits!"

Obi-Wan's other eyebrow joins the first one.

"Come on it really wasn't my fault –" Anakin says. "And hey, I got out of it alright, didn't I? No one got hurt or anything – uh, except the ship, but everyone said it was just a good thing, because it was the droid control ship and it had to be blown up anyway, otherwise the droids wouldn't have stopped so really it was just a good thing I got shot off into space – I saved everyone!"

Obi-Wan is doing that thing now, where he's trying to be all stern but his eyes are smiling – Mom does it too, except Obi-Wan is even worse at trying to look stern than she is. Anakin hesitates and then smiles carefully back until Obi-Wan sighs.

"You could have gotten hurt," he says, still trying to be stern and failing. "Don't do it again, and don't get into a star fighter again until you have proper license for them and actually know how to pilot one."

Anakin nods, and then catches up what he said. "I'm going to get a pilot's licence?! For a star fighter?!"

"One day, once you're appropriate age. If you behave," Obi-Wan says, with a laugh and shake of his head. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

Anakin opens his mouth to ask when is the appropriate age – when an inhale coming from the bed distracts him. The medical droid backing up now – and Qui-Gon is moving.

"Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon asks blearily – and Obi-Wan's whole demeanour changes. The warmth of his smile changes into awkwardness and then he's standing up and walking around the bed, to the side Qui-Gon is facing.

"I'm here, Master," he says and kneels on the floor so that he's on eye level with Qui-Gon. "You passed out on the way to the infirmary. The injury has been checked and the damage left is mostly superficial now. I think a more thorough examination at the Jedi Temple is on order, though – it was a Force healing after all."

Anakin hesitantly moves around the bed too, to see Qui-Gon's eyes shut and how he swallows around whatever pain he's still in. He looks kind of weird like this, without the Jedi tunics and robes and stuff. He looks vulnerable.

"The other one," Qui-Gon says without opening his eyes. "He… seems to be having difficulties holding onto coherency."

Obi-Wan blinks with confusion and his expression just sort of morphs into seriousness and concern and then he rises to stand on his knees. "May I?" he asks gently.

"I think you better," Qui-Gon says with a sigh. "I have been trying to – but I don't think my word holds as much weight. He doesn't listen."

Obi-Wan nods and quickly presses closer. At first Anakin thinks they're going to kiss – but before he can even try and figure how he'd feel about that, Obi-Wan presses his forehead against Qui-Gon's instead, hand on his jaw line to keep him in place.

"Come on," he murmurs and closes his eyes. "Come back to me."

He's doing something. Anakin doesn't know what, but he feels something. That Force stuff probably, some sort of Jedi mind trick maybe – everyone said that Jedi got those, that they could make you do things against your will, except Anakin had never believed it because it sounded kind of evil really, and Jedi wouldn't do that, right? Still, he can feel _something_ now. There's a sort of current between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, like a live wire, stripped bare and zapping with energy.

"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon murmurs and his voice is strange, even more tired than before, weary and worn out.

"Hold yourself together, now," Obi-Wan says gently and pulls back a little to look at him. "I know it's hard but please just try."

Qui-Gon sighs and then blinks his eyes open. "I might get easier with more practice," he says and his voice is different again – stronger. "From what I gather it had been a good long while."

''Over thirty years," Obi-Wan agrees quietly, stroking a hand over his cheek. He peers at Qui-Gon's face for a moment and nods with satisfaction before pulls back – and then his voice changes, going confused. "How is that even possible?" he asks with a frown while quickly pulling his hand back.

Qui-Gon eyes him and chuckles. "I might have keeping some secrets from you, Padawan-mine," he admits and then looks down – at Anakin. "Something to talk about later. Hello there, Anakin," he says and smiles. "You're alright. That's good."

"Master Qui-Gon, sir," Anakin says, looking between him and Obi-Wan – he's missing something here. Something big for a moment it had seemed almost like… well it doesn't really matter because, "You're hurt."

"I'll be fine in no time at all," Qui-Gon promises and shifts where he's lying. Obi-Wan rises quickly to adjust his pillows, helping Qui-Gon sit up part way. "Thank you, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon says and rests a hand on his stomach gingerly – where he now has another patch of bacta. Whatever got him went right through.

Anakin's lip quivers before he gets it under control.

"Now," Qui-Gon says while Obi-Wan sits on the side of his bed and Anakin tentatively goes closer. "What did I miss?"

"Er, well –"

"Apparently Anakin flew into space on a star fighter and blew the droid control ship up, " Obi-Wan says wryly.

"Obi-Wan!" Anakin shouts in objection.

"Anakin did what?" Qui-Gon asks, frowning.

"It was an accident – and Obi-Wan is a tattletale," Anakin mutters and folds his arms while the younger Jedi arches an eyebrow at him amusedly. "And I saved Naboo so I don't see how this is a bad thing anyway."

"That's…" Qui-Gon starts and then frowns. "I think you had better start from beginning, young one," he says.

"Well, you told me to hide in the hangar and there wasn't exactly that many places to hide these so, uh, I hid in one if the star fighters…"

-

 

Anakin is exhausted and after reliving the story of his triumphant – terrifying – flight to the orbit, to inside a trade federation droid control ship and then out of it's exploding remains… he rather wears himself out. Qui-Gon watches and listens fondly as the boy's words start to wind down into yawns, until the boy starts nodding off and finally falls asleep, half way across Qui-Gon's legs.

While the boy was awake and ready to astound those around him with his harrowing tales, he'd been a distraction. Following his descent into slumber, however, there is silence. And in that silence, Qui-Gon's mind _resonates_.

The presence inside him is struggling so hard to hold onto a shape and form and personality. With each moment he grows a little more adjusted to the idea of retaining a sphere of _being_ again, rather than being a fractured part of the Force, but it's hard. It almost hurts.

It feels a bit like having his soul torn apart.

"I don't understand," Obi-Wan – his Obi-Wan – speaks into the silence. He looks so confused, so lost. "How is this possible?"

The other Obi-Wan inside his Padawan is quiet, but Qui-Gon can feel the prod – not only from him, but from the fractured shard of himself, inside himself.

Qui-Gon draws a breath and leans his head back a little. "Some time ago, on a mission, I learned of a Force ability unknown to the Jedi," he says and then, feeling Obi-Wan's alarm, lifts a hand to stall him. "It is not of the Dark side."

"The Sith don't know of it either," the _other_ Obi-Wan says. "It's not precisely a Light side ability though – it cuts under both the Light and the Dark side. It is merely… Force." Then his younger Obi-Wan is back in control and making a face.

Qui-Gon nods slowly and looks away. "With training and discipline… much, much training and even greater discipline, it is possible… to manifest your Force after your death," he says and looks up. "I assume I mastered this ability after all, since he's here," he says and taps at his temple.

That catches the interest of the being inside him, and he wells up, rising like a geyser and pushing through whatever feeble barriers Qui-Gon had tried to erect around his mind. "I didn't," the other Qui-Gon says. "My training was still incomplete when I died. I died embodied – Obi-Wan," he says and turns to their student. The _tide_ of affection that rises within him is immense. "He mastered it."

"I had more time to work at it," the _other_ Obi-Wan admits, smiling sadly. "And a very good teacher to guide me."

"You're both dead," Qui-Gon's younger Obi-Wan whispers.

"Nothing dies within the Force," the _other_ Qui-Gon says and then withdraws again, leaving Qui-Gon with the strangest feeling of his tongue not quite fitting his mouth right. It is decidedly _odd_ to have someone else speak through your mouth.

"All things are connected to and by the Force," the _other_ Obi-Wan says and sighs. "Yes, we died in the traditional sense of the word. Yes, we remained afterwards. The result was…" he closes Qui-Gon's Padawan's eyes and shakes his head. "Afterwards we became privy to knowledge of the future. I refuse to let it come to pass."

"That place," younger Obi-Wan murmurs with a slight frown. "The dead place."

"That too," the _other_ older Obi-Wan agrees and opens his eyes. "The path that starts here, on Naboo, will lead to centuries of warfare, with dozens of sides rising and falling, until finally only non-sapient life remains. I don't know how it ends there, I only know it is a very possible future, nearly inevitable. And the seeds for it were sown on our lifetime."

Qui-Gon watches him keenly and shifts where he lies, feeling the _other_ inside him flicker and sway. He's bathed with regret, they both are, and that's worse than the future they fear. "What else?" he asks. "You came back at least thirty years – you're here to prevent something. What is it?"

The _other_ Obi-Wan smiles sadly and looks down – at Anakin sleeping over Qui-Gon's stretched legs. He reaches out and strokes a hand through the boy's hair, a look of pained wonder on his face, like that of – of a parent, who never thought to see his child again.

Oh.

"He really is the Chosen One, then," Qui-Gon says quietly, and the presence inside him quietly recoils.

"Ask yourself who is the one who chose him – and why," the _other_ Obi-Wan says and leans in to press a kiss on Anakin's brow. "I will not let him be a ruin, not this time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eh.


	11. Lion Jinn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qui Gon Jinn reincarnates as a lion

Later Anakin can't quite explain it.

He wakes up cold in the entirely too large bed they'd given him in Theed Palace, in the even bigger guest room in the all-too-enormous guest _wing_ where he and Obi-Wan Kenobi were the only guests, currently. Falling asleep had taken a while, everything just seemed to echo endlessly in that wide open space, and though Theed is warmer than Coruscant, it's still so cold. And waking up he feels like he's not slept at all.

It wasn't a nightmare that woke him, or sound, or anything. It was a feeling, an uneasy alarm. Like he'd forgotten to do something really important, like maybe he'd left a plasma torch on, or maybe forgot to turn on the security at the shop, or maybe there's a stove on or – or something. He's missed something and he needs to go and check it, right now.

There shouldn't be anything – thanks to Padmé, the palace servants and the handmaidens are making sure all his and Obi-Wan's needs are looked into. They're not supposed to have to worry about anything for now, not about food or even water or anything. Anakin had even been given new clothes, a nice clean tunic and everything. He shouldn't have missed something because there was nothing to miss.

Still. Anakin hadn't survived pod racing this long by ignoring his gut feelings, so up he gets, leaving the mile wide bed and quickly shrugging on the cloak they'd given him when he asked about the cold, if it was like this everywhere. It wasn't quite a Jedi cloak – though Obi-Wan had assured him that he would be a Jedi, never mind what the council would say when they arrived, Obi-Wan would teach him regardless of what they thought. The Naboo didn't have Jedi cloaks – but it was closest they could get, a black cape to throw around him with a hood. It was pretty nice – and warm – even if it didn't have sleeves.

Wrapped in the cloak, Anakin stepped outside and then hesitated momentarily over Obi-Wan's door. The Jedi had said he could go to him for anything, that Obi-Wan would do his utmost to help him, that was his duty now, but…

Shaking his head a little, Anakin heads away, following the feeling of _here, you need to come here, you need to do this._ Maybe it's Jar Jar. Or R2-D2, Anakin hasn't seen him in a day or so, maybe they'd forgotten to give him proper maintenance. Or maybe…

The feeling leads him out a window, which has been left slightly ajar to let the air in. Anakin hesitates only for a moment and then climbs out, dropping down to the grass outside and then following the feeling into the dark, quiet garden, and through it. Up a thing of vines, across a bit of wall, up a rooftop…

He's starting to get a little worried by the time the feeling leads him away from any place in Theed he's been to before, and to a wholly new section. Usually his _feelings_ led him to places he knew. Qui-Gon had told him to trust his feelings and his instincts, that they were the Force, speaking to him and guiding him – but this is starting to be a little weird…

The feeling leads him to a weird, grandiose gate – he slips right through it and into… into…

It looks a bit like slave pen. It looks a lot like slave pen actually. There are fences and gates and barred enclosures everywhere. For a moment Anakin just stands there, horrified – surely the Naboo don't keep slaves, Padmé had said it was illegal in Republic, surely they _wouldn't_ …

Then he hears a quiet snarl and sees – it's not people in those barred cells. It's animals. A weird lizard thing brushes past the bars on its way elsewhere and in another Anakin can see a bird, ruffling its feathers.

Oh, a stable? Yeah, that must be it. A really grandiose sort of stable, which just fits the Naboo to a T, doesn't it? The animals here don't look like something you could ride or make carry your things, though…

Curious and enthralled – and beckoned by the increasingly _urgent_ feeling in the pit of his belly – Anakin hurries forward. There are a lot of enclosures here – and soon Anakin figures out they're lot bigger than they look. What he can see on the pathway he's on is just a fraction – the enclosures go deep into the surrounding grounds, covering a lot of ground. Really, really weird stable, he muses, peering at all the weird creatures. Colourful lizards and weird felines and lot of birds with really, really extravagant feathers…

The _feeling_ leads him deeper and deeper in to the dark, strange stable, until he brings him to another enclosure. He can't see what's in it, just that the grounds are sort of desert-ish, with sandy brown grass and few trees, a water feature and lots of rocks. Nothing like some of the closures, which are packed full of plants.

Here, the feeling says. This one.

Anakin is pretty sure he couldn't have forgotten anything here, he's never even been here before, he has no idea what this place even is. But, trust your instincts and all that…

Getting into the enclosure isn't terribly difficult. It's barred from him by a high wall of golden bars, and glass window – both of which he figures out how to climb without too much trouble. Dropping down into the enclosure, he looks around and then follows the feeling deeper in, past the water feature and the rocks and the trees, to the back where the grass is tallest, and there's some bushes too.

There, he hears a warning growl – and then a _feeling_. A different feeling. A _familiar_ feeling. Feeling he can't… explain at all.

There's a creature there, in the grass – a huge feline thing with four legs and big head and fur like Tatooine sand. It – she? Yes that sounds right – is lying on the grass on her side, propped up by one elbow and peering at him with eyes that gleam in the darkness.

There are little felines at her side, nosing at her belly and awkwardly squirming about

Anakin blinks and looks down.

One of the little feline things is crawling away from the bigger feline thing, towards him, an awkward sort of belly crawl like it can't quite use its legs yet, and it feels… it _feels_ …

Anakin crouches down and reaches for the little feline thing. The – mother? – growls softly at him, and then there is that _feeling_ again, the familiar feeling of a presence Anakin had learned to know and trust and – and which was supposed to be gone.

He'd felt it _go_. And Obi-Wan told him – he'd not been lying, Anakin knows that much, Obi-Wan had been hurting so bad, he couldn't have been lying. And he hadn't been, because…

Anakin picks the squirming little thing up – well not that little, really. In comparison to the mother, it is tiny, but in Anakin's hands it weights well over a kilogram and fits only barely to both his palms. It's warm, and little bit damp and he thinks it was probably just born. It looks like a new born, all awkward and squirmy – it can't even open its eyes yet.

The newborn feline settles in his cupped palms, one foot falling to hang between Anakin's fingers before it's tucked back in, and the little thing is opening a toothless mouth as if to make a noise, but nothing comes out. Letting out the slightest huff of a breath, the little – in future huge – feline curls up in his palms while Anakin just stares in wonder.

"You're…"

* * *

 

"… Qui-Gon?" Obi-Wan repeats.

Anakin squirms a little, holding the feline to his chest protectively under Obi-Wan's strange stare. It seems judgemental, it seems hurt, it seems hollow, it seems – awful. And Anakin realises, somewhat distantly, that he probably did something bad, from Obi-Wan's point of view.

He'd be hurt too, if his Mom died and then someone came and brought him a cat and said, here, this is your Mom, she's a cat now. In hindsight, that is actually kind of terrible.

"I… can't explain," Anakin says and looks down at the feline. He's asleep in Anakin's hands, curled up tight to himself with little tail tucked between his little legs, pink pads of his feet barely visible from where they are tucked against his belly. It is – not much like Qui-Gon is it. "But I swear, he feels just like Qui-Gon – and, and force led me there, I swear, it had to be. I mean, I didn't even know that place, I still don't know what that place even is, and –"

"Anakin," Obi-Wan says, very slow and measured and Anakin stops, staring at him with hopeless trepidation. Obi-Wan doesn't look like he knows what to say or think – he just looks tired and hurt. Still, he takes a breath and then kneels down in front of him, to look him to his eyes. "Anakin – Master Qui-Gon is… gone."

 "I felt it, I know what I felt – it's him," Anakin almost pleads and holds the little feline out to Obi-Wan. "I'm not making this up, I wouldn't make this up."

"It's just – not possible," Obi-Wan says wearily and looks down. He shakes his head. "What you have there is a lion cub – a baby lion cub. And – I don't even know _how_ you found it or got it away from its mother, but we need to take it back."

"Obi-Wan, it's not – I – it's Qui-Gon," Anakin says. "I swear it is – just, hold him? Okay? Just for a moment?"

"Anakin," Obi-.Wan sighs.

"Please, just for a moment – you'll know it's him when you touch him," Anakin says and holds the – lion? – out to the Jedi. "Just – hold him."

Obi-Wan hesitates, glancing down. He opens his mouth to argue and then sighs, a mixed look of weary resignation on his face. "Fine – but then we are taking it back," he says and holds out his hands.

Qui-Gon looks even _smaller_ when Obi-Wan holds him. Just a tiny little bundle of sand brown fur, with darker spots on it head, round ears drooping down kind of sleepily – he looks almost comically tiny and vulnerable.

There's nothing comical about the look on Obi-Wan's face, or the sharp inhale he draws, the way his fingers curl around the lion cub – the way he then curls around him, drawing him to his chest. "Qui-Gon," he whispers.

"Told you," Anakin says and leans in. Qui-Gon is squirming a little in Obi-Wan's hands, one leg flailing up and then it falls over in Obi-Wan's hands. The Jedi lets out a noise of disbelieved distress and together they stare at Qui-Gon, lying on his back against Obi-Wan's chest, flailing his little legs every which way to try and regain balance.

Awkward and terribly, heartbreakingly careful, Obi-Wan falls to his knees and helps the lion cub to settle on his lap, right way around. Qui-Gon opens and closes his toothless mouth and then squirms towards Obi-Wan's belly, kicking at his tunic with his legs, nails snagging in on the weaving of the fabric.

"What?" Obi-Wan whispers. "What is this?"

"Don't look at me," Anakin says, crouching down and shuffling closer on his knees. "I just – felt it."

Obi-Wan looks up and then looks down at his master, reborn, as a lion. The noise he makes is weird, a sob and a laugh and choked disbelief, as he cups his hands around the squirming feline body, bringing it closer.

"This is… impossible," Obi-Wan says, his voice faint. "Utterly completely _ludicrous_. This is – _Master_ …"

"Are you going to _cry_?" Anakin asks, a bit scared that he might.

"I might," Obi-Wan admits and looks up. And then, like drawn by gravity, he looks down again. He swallows and shakes his head and clears his throat. "I – don't – tell me again how did you find him?" he asks.

Anakin does, settling down to sit cross-legged across from Obi.-Wan and listing everything he'd done, point by point, from waking up in his bed to going to the weird stable to coming back with little lion Qui-Gon. "I really don't know," Anakin says. "I just – had a feeling."

Obi-Wan has calmed down a little, though his fingers are still shaking where he's slowly brushing them down Qui-Gon's fur. "You had a feeling," he repeated and Anakin shrugs. "Well it was certainly Force speaking to you. You are very strong in it – if someone could… feel this, it would be you. It doesn't explain how, but…" he trails off and looks down again.

For a moment they're quiet, just staring at Qui-Gon – who has squirmed his way to Obi-Wan's belly and has tucked his nose just under the edge of Obi-Wan's tunic. He's still kicking with his hind feet, so he's not asleep, but he's not doing much more.

"What are we going to do?" Anakin asks.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "I – have no idea," he admits and then lifts a head. "He's a newborn," he then says.

"Yeah, yeah I think so," Anakin agrees and reaches over to press a fingertip on the pink pad in the middle of Qui-Gon's foot. It's… even softer than it looks. "I think I felt him the moment he was born."

Obi-Wan blinks and looks down. "Oh, Force – we need to _feed_ him something," he says and shifts as if to get up, and then collapses down to his knees again. "I have no idea what to feed to a lion cub," he then says confusedly and blinks. "He will need some form of specialised formula. We need see if we can – oh," he says and runs a hand over his face. "Oh dear."

"What?" Anakin asks.

"Well, in essence you stole a new born lion cub from a zoo," Obi-Wan says, even as he clasps a protective – possessive – hand over Qui-Gon's back. "It's… a little much to go asking the Naboo for something to feed a creature we _stole_ from them."

"But it's _Qui-Gon_. It's not really stealing when it's a friend – what were we going to do, just leave him there, in a _cage_?" Anakin points out. "And we saved their planet. They owe us, right?"

"Anakin – people don't _owe_ Jedi anything," Obi-Wan starts and then stops and sighs, looking down at Qui-Gon.

"You wouldn't just give him back, right?" Anakin asks him warily.

"Certainly _not_ ," Obi-Wan says immediately and then slumps a little. "No," he says calmer. "I couldn't."

"Right. So we just ask them and we don't give him back and if it's stealing, then… well it's not, it's more a rescue really. And Padmé won't mind if we explain it to her and really they _do_ owe us – and if they don't owe you because you're Jedi then they owe me, because I'm not a Jedi yet," Anakin says, nodding in satisfaction at his own logic and then jumps to his feet. "So lets go ask them for something to feed Qui-Gon. What else are we going to do?"

Obi-Wan hesitates and then nods. "No, you're right, that is precisely what we're going to do," he says and then carefully eases his fingers under Qui-Gon, to lift his form up to his arms. "Let's go."


	12. Needle in a sand stack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben goes out looking for a needle.

What beings him to Mos Espa is the silliest thing. He's looking for a needle.

It's reached that point in his isolation – in his boredom – that he both dares to and wants to indulge in that meaningless quest. Time passes ever so slowly on Tatooine, in endless routine of meditation and waiting and watching. And though Obi-Wan – Ben, now, he's almost even used to it – has and gladly will dedicate the ensuing years to it... Force, but it gets tiresome. After the war and it trials, the loss, the betrayal and the hurt... it's the boredom that is too much for him.

And so when the opportunity to distract himself a little for a little while comes along, he takes it happily.

He could have simply bought new clothes, he still has enough money for that. In all honesty he probably already should have replaced his wardrobe – for all that the simple homespun fabrics of his tunics and trousers and robes fit the meagre and simple fashions of Tatooine, they are still a Jedi's clothes. He should be trying to differentiate. He stands out enough as it is, living the hermit's life in the outskirts of society and making people wonder and gossip about what brand of insanity had driven him there... But he can't.

He has so little of his old life left and evils of attachments aside... he can't let it go that easily.

So when the last pair of trousers issued to him by the Jedi Order rips a seam, he lets the temptation of little bit of action and time in society carry him into a quest to find a way to repair them instead of simply replacing them. And though he could go for a simple cloth patch that automatically attaches, like many in Tatooine do... he'd rather not. Not only is it a little unbefitting of a Jedi Master to go around with a badly batched up trousers – as if that even matters anymore – he simply doesn't want to. He wants to repair his few belongings properly, by hand and whatever meagre skill he has. And if it takes him a while to figure it out, all the better. He's not exactly busy, after all, and little bit of distraction from the silence would be welcome.

And so he sets out in search of a needle, and a thread. Truly, quests worthy of a Jedi Master. The thread he finds with ease – the needle proves out to be a trickier find. Mos Eisley, though a bustling trade port of scavengers, criminals and smugglers, doesn't have anything even approaching to hand craft stores and when he politely enquires after sewing supplies, people look at him like he's a lunatic. Which at this point he might very well be, if he's honest.

"Well I got needles a plenty – but mine tend to be the type you stick to your flesh, not your clothes," one somewhat sketchy looking seller – who stinks of stims and vaporated alcohol – muses. "But nah I got nothing to put a thread through. Never heard the like."

"Surely someone in this place actually repairs their clothes," Ben sighs.

"Sure, with patches," the stimmed up seller says. "I might've heard something about something somewhere though," he then offers and gives Ben a meaningful look. "Needles gotta be shiny, yeah? Might be able to jog my memory a bit if there was something shiny about."

All this for a needle, Ben muses, but puts a credit chip on the table. And then another when the seller just looks at him. And finally third, after which the seller finally snatches the whole pile up.

"Heard there's a slave labour store in Mos Espa that makes clothes from scratch, real high quality stuff too, for all the rich sleemos that go to the races. You might find something there," the seller says.

And so, to Mos Espa Ben goes – after straying a little off to the side to check up on Luke, just in case. All is well in the Lars Farm, however. Owen and Beru are at work and Luke sleeps in a sling on Beru's back with no care in the world. Obi-Wan keeps his distance and once he's sure Force is still and calm and there is no scent of danger in air, he turns his attention to Mos Espa.

It's a bit funny how, after nearly two years on Tatooine, he's never visited the city of Anakin's childhood. Or maybe there is nothing funny about it – maybe he's been avoiding it for a good reason. Maybe not. Now, thankfully, the hurts and regrets of past years had been worn a little thinner and instead of being a gaping maw of all consuming regret, it is simply another past demon to face.

The site of Jedi Order's very first failing with Anakin Skywalker.

* * *

 

Mos Espa is much like any other Tatooine city. It's hot, it's sandy and it's full of filth, both proverbial and literal. They're in the part of Tatooine where it's cheaper to keep local draught animals than it is to be constantly servicing eternally malfunctioning speeders and the streets show it. Even which way you look, there a pile of animal waste.

There is also a lot and lot of lowlifes, even more so than in Mos Einsley. The racing, the gambling – the rampant slavery and abuse of it – all have left their marks on the city. Mos Espa is far busier than most Tatooine settlements are, in a way neater because the locals are all looking to make a good impression on visitors – so that they can make better impression on their wallets – but there is a terrible undercurrent of systematic, settled injustice here.

Here, even the Hutts aren't trying to keep order. Here only money rules. And it rules cruelly.

To think Anakin came from such a place.

Ben tugs his cloak tighter around himself as he idly wanders around this terrible place, so artificially bright, so deeply rooted in sentient misery. Here, quarter of permanent settlers are all slaves, working in the local businesses – here, all the goods are made by the worn hands of workers who get no pay or reward for it. Every which way Ben looks, he sees people who look on the brink of starvation, others who look like sometime in their past they'd been beaten badly enough for permanent damage. And no one bats an eye to any of it.

Mos Espa is an evil place. It would be easy to blame Anakin's fall to these beginnings – but no, it wasn't the history of slavery that broke Anakin's will. Anakin had emerged strong and stubborn from it. But the Jedi Order's reaction to it...

So many things they could've done better, but hadn't. So many regrets left to be dealt with, and no one but him left to even think them. Well, perhaps Yoda did... but then, perhaps he didn't. Dagobah, after all, has little in way of reminders.

Ben sighs and tugs the hood of his cloak down. He has a needle to find in this truly terrible haystack and getting lost in regrets will not make the finding of it any faster. Time to get a move on, old Ben.

* * *

 

He finds the store that sells hand crafter clothes. They have no crafting materials on sale, however, and eye him leerily when he asks for them. Suspicious perhaps of him being competition, rather than a customer, of trying to set up a rival shop.

"I promise I have no such allusions," Ben sighs. "All I am looking for are means to mend my clothes, nothing else."

"Well if you need your clothes mended, I'm sure we can figure something out," the matron of the store says, giving his cloak and tunics a sneering glance. "For the right fee, we'll patch you right up."

"Thank you, but I would rather acquire means to do so myself – now and in the future," Ben says. "All I am looking for is a sewing needle, nothing else."

The matron has gotten the bit between her teeth now, and refuses to even consider selling anything of the sort, they have no needles to sell, perish the thought – but she can sell him the services of her girls in the store, and then keeps trying to do just that so insistently that the slave workers of the store start giving Ben sympathetic looks.

In the end, he leaves the store without a needle, and almost without his trousers too – he's half surprised to find himself still in possession of both his cloak and his wallet, considering how the Matron kept trying to paw at both.

Sighing, Ben stands in front of the store for a moment, just breathing in the filthy, hot air of Mos Espa, wondering at the point his life has come to. Then he feels a presence at his side.

"Here," a woman's voice says and Ben struggles not to react as if to a hostile move when she holds out her hand, something held delicately between her fingers. "It's a little bent, but if you heat it up a little, I'm sure you can bend it back to shape."

It's a human woman with dark hair and slave's homespun clothes, and she's holding a sewing needle – slightly bent as advertised, but serviceable.

"Thank you," Ben says slowly, wondering. She's one of the women from the store… a slave. Did she steal the needle? "But surely I cannot accept it without paying," he says carefully.

"These things don't cost much, truly – and this one is mine, not one from the store," the dark haired woman says quickly and offers him an awkward smile. "We can take the ones thrown away for ourselves, if we want – I have plenty of spares. The Madam just wanted to try and make you come back for further services."

"As you do," Ben says and accepts the needle. "Thank you," he says and sighs. A slave, offering him charity. The galaxy is a terrible, wonderful place sometimes – in lowest of places you can often find the kindest of people. "This is very kind of you. I would still like to repay you somehow."

The woman looks at him and then away, smiling awkwardly. "I'm just done with my shift here," she then says. "And I have to admit that I am a little curious why you didn't just settle on a patch. Not many bother or can afford bothering with something as old fashioned as sewing. It's an odd skill to find, outside this very store."

"Well, it's not exactly a skill I have," Ben admits sheepishly. "I had hoped to learn. I don't want to use a patch, they..." would cheapen the worth and value of his clothes, to him, in the most insipid sentimental aesthetic sense. He shakes his head. "Sewing seems a little more dignified."

The slave woman chuckles, and looks at him hesitantly. "Perhaps you can tell me about it over a cup of caff?" she more offers than asks.

Ben considers her. A cup which would come with a meal and perhaps evening after? She doesn't look like a prostitute, but then... how would he know? Tatooine is still such an alien place to him. "Perhaps," he says. He could repay her with some food at any case – it doesn't look like she's suffering from abundance of it. "Yes, I could very well do that."

The woman gives him a fleeting smile and then holds out a hand. "Shmi," she says.

Ben smiles and accepts the hand. "Ben," he introduces himself and then tugs the needle away, carefully weaving it into the inside lining of his pocket where it hopefully wouldn't fall. "I'm new to Mos Espa, I'm afraid – I don't actually know where to get caff around here."

"You're in luck, then – I know exactly where get it," Shmi smiles and motions him to follow. "Do you live very far away?"

"At the edge of the Dune Sea, near Pika Oasis – do you know it?"

"I have never been to it, but I have heard about it," she says. "Lot of moisture farmers."

"Not a lot of moisture, though," Ben muses and she chuckles.

They find their way to a small outdoor cantina type of establishment, which seems to sell snacks and such during the day – and cooler beverages during the night. Ben buys himself and Shmi cups of ice caff, much to her delight, and then what he hopes passes for human food. In Tatooine, it's always bit of a coin toss.

"So, sewing?" Shmi asks and smiles a little into her caff. "Do you know much about it?"

"I – know it's a skill that exists," Ben says slowly, eying his own cup. "I think I have seen people do it, but I can't quite recall where." Ryloth, he thinks. He'd seen it done in Ryloth – a mother, sewing a new headdress for her child… before burying her. He shakes his head. "I'm very determined to learn it myself, however."

"Always good thing to be," Shmi agrees, considering him curiously. "Do you have yarn?"

"As matter of fact," Ben says and takes out the small wheel of thread he'd procured from Mos Eisley. "It's not perfect, I understand, but I hoped it would be good enough to sew a couple of holes with."

She considers the yarn wheel and nods. "It's about as good as you can get without ordering off world, probably," she agrees. "Might I see that needle again?"

Ben watches then with some amazement as she demonstrates sewing to him on the hem of her shirt – where she has a small rip. She shows him first a very basic stitch, in one side and out the other around the cut. Then she smiles, and unwinds the stitches she made. "Now, if you want to hide that you've sewn it – this is how you do an invisible stitch."

"Sounds mysterious," Ben muses and then watches as she does just that – stitching up the rip with the stitches all but invisible behind the fabric itself. "That's _wonderful_. It makes perfect sense that there'd be other kinds of stitches but I have never really thought about it."

"There are dozens of ways to stitch up a ripped seam," Shmi says amusedly and goes to unwind the stitches in her rough shirt.

"No, no, don't undo your work," Ben says. "You did it so wonderfully, it would be a shame to see it undone."

"But your yarn –"

"There's plenty of it – you can certainly keep a length of it," Ben assures her. "And I can get more if I need it – the tutelage however is priceless. Thank you for it."

Shmi offers him a smile, and then binds the ends of the yarn with easy movements which Ben knows he will not be able to with anything less than months of practice, if even then. She then winds the needle into the yarn wheel and hands it over to him. "There you go, sir," she says, mimicking his accent a little – though it's done in good humour, not with mocking. "Your belonging."

"Why thank you, madam," Ben says with a smile and puts the thread away. "You are very kind."

The sad honesty of it must slip into his voice because Shmi's smile quivers a little and she looks away. "… for a slave," she finishes the thought and then smiles a little brighter when he goes to apologise. "It's the most and the least I can give," she says then. "Compassion. Pitiful, is it?"

"No," Ben says softly and looks away, a little shamed for having thought her a prostitute, trying to mark him for a customer. "No, it's the furthest thing from pitiful. I'm sorry."

"You're not from around here," Shmi says.

"That obvious, hm?" Ben asks and shakes his head. "No, I fear I am still very new to this place. And it will probably take few more years before I get used to it." Few more years, in silence, in quiet, lost in the shifting of sand. He'd get used to it. One day.

"I've been here for more than few years – and I'm still not used to it," she sighs. "If you manage it, please tell me how."

Ben chuckles, sadly. "I'll do that," he says and drains his caff. It's gotten warm, while he watched Shmi sew. "Thank you again for the lesson," he says then. "I should –"

"Mom!"

Shmi looks up and Ben follows her gaze. There's a little boy in simple, homespun tunic running towards them and for a moment Ben feels a keen sense of loss and nostalgia – the boy looks so much like Anakin did, so, so long ago. The same simple hair cut, the same sun-bleached hair, the same awkward sand boots…

"Ani," Shmi says as the boy crashes all but to her knees. "Done with Watto today?"

"Yeah, he kicked me out, customers – can I go see Kitster?" the boy says, leaning onto her knees and looking up with glowing blue eyes. "I'm gonna ask him to help me with – stuff."

"Stuff wouldn't happen to be that piece of junk you dragged from the races, would it?" Shmi says flatly.

"Er," the boy answers, looking shifty. "It's… not junk. It could be valuable, if I, you know… got it up and running again."

Shmi takes a breath, holds it for a moment as if to argue, and then lets it go in a sigh. "No live power coils," she says resignedly. "And no engine start ups."

"Yes!" the boy says and jumps to his feet. "Thank you Mom! Love you! I'll be back later!"

"You'll be back for dinner! Anakin!" Shmi shouts after him and then sighs as the boy just waves a hand at her – and then she's gone. "Sorry," she says, turning to Ben. "My son is – excitable."

Ben's throat works silently for a moment and then he manages to clear it of the aching, terrible blockade suddenly stuck somewhere in middle. "Your – son's name is Anakin?" he asks.

"Yes, Anakin Skywalker," Shmi says and looks after the boy with a sigh. "And I swear he's doing his darnest to live up to it, too. He's got a podracer repulsor he picked up from the race track, wreckage from a crash… he's going to try and fix it."

"Ah," Ben says, even as his mind grinds to a slow halt. Anakin, he thinks. _Skywalker_.

That's one hell of a needle to find, in the sand stacks of Tatooine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then there's time travel.


	13. After Melida/Daan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU in which Obi-Wan didn't go back to the Jedi.

Obi-Wan stands at the docks, staring up as the freighter comes to land. His ticket out of here, finally – all too soon, still. There is still so much work to be done, so many things to cover, so much to –

"Hey, wait a bit?" a voice behind him calls, and he knows it's calling for him. Sighing a little, he turns to look – one of the new leaders, a girl named Seras. She's a far cry from the founders of the movement that swept the planet and eventually left it in ruins, but she's a good girl, sharp and quick and wise in a way that reminds him a little too much of Cerasi and…

"Don't come back here," Seras says, arms folded. She has a bandage on her upper arm, the fabric of her shirt bunches up on it. Scrape, blaster wound? Her blaster she wears plainly in sight, at her hip. Same as Obi-Wan does, now. "Don't ever," she says, and she sounds sad and determined and tired.

"Don't worry," Obi-Wan sighs, bending down to pick up the sack of meagre belongings he has. "I wouldn't."

Seras eyes him for a moment and then nods, her tight posture relaxing a little. "Listen, I'm… I'm sorry, I know, you sacrificed a lot here," she says then, and looks away. "For a place that isn't even yours, and now we just want you gone from here, but – what I'm trying to say it's appreciated."

Obi-Wan nods, not really feeling steady or confident enough to say anything to that. He didn't do it for appreciation or thanks or even apologies. He did it because it felt right… at the time.

She looks at him like she gets it, but she also has to say her piece – for her own peace of mind rather than his. "We appreciate all you did, you and the Young, you started something big here, and we're finally on the right track, we're finally going to have peace. But you…"

"I get it," Obi-Wan says. Behind him the freighter is finally on the ground, its landing kicking up dust and dirt, making his coat hems flapping, his scarf tearing at the wind. "You don't have to –"

Seras gives him a look and he falls silent. "You stand for a bygone era," she says. "People look at you and they think of the war. They think of Young, and what happened to them. And we need to stop looking back – looking back is what got us here. We need to look forward and you... you're the past."

I'm seventeen, Obi-wan thinks but doesn't say. I'm seventeen and I'm already a relic of a terrible past. "I get it," he says again instead and looks away. "And I'm glad the world is moving on. I really am – it's all we ever wanted. For people to finally… move on from the war."

What they hadn't wanted were the three years of near constant bloodshed and the piles of bodies that took for them to get there – so many of them their own.

"I get it," Obi-Wan says. "Believe me, I don't blame you. I want me gone too."

Seras makes a face and then takes a few steps forward, holding out something. He accepts it automatically and then looks down. It's a credit reader.

"We did a collection," she says and doesn't look at him. "It's not much but it should get you started – we… we are grateful and you did so much, you need to be rewarded, so…"

"I'm not a mercenary," Obi-Wan says quietly. "And you need this money, however much is in there –"

Seras shrugs and doesn't accept the reader back. "Good luck," she says instead, awkward as she quickly puts distance between them. "Don't come back," she says again, her final goodbye, and then turns around and walks away.

Obi-Wan stares after her for a moment and then puts the credit reader away. It won't have much on it, hundreds, maybe a thousand or two at most – not enough to sustain him for longer than a while, but… it's better than nothing. And he does need it.

Turning back to the freighter, Obi-Wan looks at it, takes in its conformation and design. It runs under Republic tag – legal then. No Hutts, he deems, and then shouldering his sack little better, he heads in.

* * *

 

Obi-Wan doesn't have much left now. He has a blaster, and pack of recharge clips for it – it's a weapon he's learned to know well in the last few years, one he can shoot blind with only one functional finger left if he needs – something he knows from experience. He has three sets of clothing, two of them from Melida/Daan which makes them a mismatch of colours and designs and make him look a little homeless and a lot warriorsome – all of them include some form of basic armour. One of them is a set he doesn't wear anymore. He should get rid of that. He has some basic necessities, soap, towel, toothcleaner… a pack of bacta patches he might've stolen, he's not sure.

And a lightsaber.

"Hey," a rough voice speaks as someone sidles towards him. Obi-Wan doesn't put a hand on his blaster, though it's a near thing, and instead he turns to look. It's a twi-lek man, eying him with stim-wide pupils and distracted, sharp toothed leer on his lips. "That's some piece you got there."

Obi-Wan blinks, taking the man in – worn, mostly leather clothing, blaster at his side, upright posture, face in full display, arms bare. "Yeah," Obi-Wan says slowly, glancing around just in case. There's no one around and he can't sense an ambush – whatever it is, it's not a distraction for someone to use to sneak up on him.

"You know how to use it?"

"Well enough to get the job done," Obi-Wan says slowly, turning his eyes to the twi-lek. "Can you use yours?"

"I can hit a credit chip at three hundred paces," the Twi-lek says, not a boast, a fact. "Granted that the chip isn't moving. You from Melida/Daan?"

"I was just passing through," Obi-Wan says and turns away.

"Passing through, doing some work, getting paid?" the twi-lek asks. "I was watching, before you boarded. The girl paid you for something."

Obi-Wan doesn't answer, lowering his hands from where they were busy putting his things away. He flexes his fingers idly. He doesn't know if he can shoot a credit chip at three hundred paces, he's never tried, but he thinks he can draw faster than the twi-lek and this close that's all that matters; who draws first.

"Relax, kid," the twi-lek says, waving a dismissive, long nailed hand. "I'm not looking to rob you. I've heard stuff about Melida/Daan though. Didn't think they had anything left to pay hired guns with. Heard things got messy towards the end."

"One way of putting it," Obi-Wan admits and then looks the twi-lek over again. He doesn't look hostile, he doesn't feel hostile. "Is there something I can do for you?"

The twi-lek considers him and then nods at his waist. "That shiny little tube of metal you got there," he says. "That the real thing?"

His lightsaber.

Obi-Wan presses his lips together and says nothing – and very carefully doesn't go for the thing. He hasn't used it in – in a while. Now it sits on his belt in the back, usually hidden by his coat – it must've shown when he was reaching up putting his things away, when his coat had ridden up.

"You might want to either wear it out in the open or put it away, kid," the twi-lek says. "However it got there, either own it, or bury it. Half-assing it will get you killed."

The twi-lek turns to head away while Obi-Wan frowns. "Why?" he asks, confused, though he's not asking about why a lightsaber might get him killed – he knows why. But why tell him? Why warn him?

"Don't know how you got the thing, don't care," the twi-lek says and waves a hand at him. "Hate to see young up and coming mercs get whacked – especially on a ship I'm on."

Obi-Wan frowns a little. "Appreciate it," he says and reaches back to touch the lightsaber. The twi-lek is already gone, disappeared around the corner, leaving Obi-Wan settling into his bunk.

He leaves the lightsaber where it is, though. It's fine where it is.

* * *

 

He has no idea what to do next. That's kind of the worst thing. For nearly three years straight he's known exactly what to do, where to be, what was needed of him but now…

The galaxy is a big place when you have no place to go.

 _You could go back_ , whispers a traitorous voice somewhere in the back of Obi-Wan's head and it sounds like Qui-Gon Jinn. Memory and time has made the man's voice deeper and colder than it probably was – voice heard by a thirteen year old child remembered by a seventeen year old man… he's probably imagining the whole thing and Qui-Gon doesn't actually sound anything like that and never has. Now all of Obi-Wan's doubts sound like him.

 _You could go back_ , the voice whispers. _It was your home; you were raised in that temple, surely…_

 _No_ , Obi-Wan answers. _I walked away years ago. There will be no open doors left there for me_.

Maybe, if it was a knight. A fully trained Jedi that walked away and returned might find a place among those ranks – but a Padawan? His training hadn't really even begun, never mind having been finished, and it's been over three years now, nearly four. He just celebrated his seventeenth lifeday. That's nearly four years without training.

A Padawan with nearly four years of training under a Master and a Padawan who has nothing of the sort… two whole different beasts.

Obi-Wan flicks through the freighter manifest, checking its routes. He has ticket that will take him anywhere between Melida/Daan and Corellia – he can stop at any of the six systems in between and just... go his way. Do whatever. Find a job, maybe. He would need to, eventually. He's not a soldier on standard rations anywhere, there is no army out there with storages to support him. His next meal he would have to pay for with his own money, and even with the chip reader from Seras, his funds are limited. He would need a source of income. A job and pay, like everyone else.

There are only so many things he knows how to do now, though.

Sighing Obi-Wan puts the ship manifest away and sits down on his bunk. It's on an open corridor – no personal cabins on this ship, everyone and everything is out in display here, and passengers are forced to share everything. He'd be sleeping with one eye open here, he muses and runs a hand over his hair, long since grown out of a Padawan's cut. It's long enough to tie at the back now.

He doesn't. Having the ginger strands falling to his face is as good as a disguise. Not that anyone is looking for him. Not that anyone _would_ be. He didn't make a name for himself in Melida/Daan, and who cares about a lost Padawan? The most valuable thing about him is the lightsaber at his back – in that the twi-lek had been right – and after that... his blaster. He'd fought long enough and well enough to deserve one of the best to be found on Melida/Daan.

Now he's fought with a blaster for longer than he's really fought with a lightsaber. Training doesn't… doesn’t count. Training has no lives on the line.

Taking the thing out, Obi-Wan runs his fingers over the barrel, down to the grip. It's a sturdy thing, fairly new and yet already well worn. Heavy in hand – he likes that. A weapon with only one purpose should be heavy. He should clean it, but there's no supplies for that here. Should've taken the opportunity while still on planet side. Too late now.

Who knows when if ever he'll get another opportunity.

"Damn it," Obi-Wan mutters and lowers the blaster, gripping it in shaking hands.

"Are you going to eat it?"

Frowning, Obi-Wan looks up – and then down. There's a human kid there, maybe six year old, dressed in dirty Melida/Daan clothes. A refugee.

"My daddy ate his blaster," the little girl says, looking between him and the blaster. "That's what mom said anyway. Is it good eating, a blaster?"

Obi-Wan blinks at her. She's… missing an arm and has a scar across her face, a burn mark. She's also very thin, too thin. "No," he says then and shoves the blaster back to its holster, throwing his coat hem over it for good measure. "It's not good at all. I'm sorry."

"Oh," she says, disappointed. "I'm hungry," she whines.

Obi-Wan eyes her for a moment while she looks back. She doesn't look exactly expectant – only a little hopeful. "So am I," Obi-Wan says finally. He doesn't have food to give her.

The girl sighs, turns, and leaves without another word.

* * *

 

A sound in the darkness wakes him just before the lights come on. The other passengers around him, bleary with interrupted sleep, groan in their bunks and look up – and then fall deathly silent at the sound of a blaster, going off.

"Alright," someone snaps out while Obi-Wan looks to the door way. Three people – a human, a rodian and a familiar looking twi-lek – are standing there, all with blasters in hand. The rodian is the one who shot – the human the one who talked. "Put it all up, in an orderly fashion now. We don't want no trouble, so just put it all up."

"P-put what up?" someone asks, shaky but not nervous. A woman's voice – she sounds weary and tired and resigned.

"Every single thing you own," the human says and aims his blaster at her. "Quickly now, lady."

They don't feel like deathly intent. Obi-Wan lays down in his bunk for a moment longer, letting the Force carry his senses. They aren't looking to kill, they aren't even looking to hurt. All they want is money – the nearly settled scent of avarice in the air is thick and familiar. And refugees… refugees make easy target.

Some of them are throwing their packs and cases to the narrow corridor floor for the thieves' perusal, but Obi-Wan hesitates. He could… he could…

"Hey there," a familiar voice speaking in hushed tones. The twi-lek is standing over his bunk, blaster aimed at Obi-Wan's head. He leans in. "Hands where I see them, boy – and give it up."

Obi-Wan blinks, looks at the blaster, then at twi-lek's companions. They aren't like him – they wear more fully covering clothes, the human even has some armour on. Cheap blasters, well worn clothes, stains, wear and tear… and a the feel of greed and disregard and ruin. They make their living like this, robbing other people. The twi-lek's blaster on other hand is a good model, well maintained, and he is more settled in his own skin. The fact that he bares his arms up to his elbows is telling – no scars there, nothing to hide. The avarice is thin on him. This isn't how he makes his living.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes for a moment, reading the air. In the back, someone is sobbing, saying, "P-please, it's all we have, this money is supposed to get us all the way to Corellia, without it – please, you can't – "

But there is also sense of anger in the air. That simmering cinderburn of frustrated _fury_ – and it's not coming from the thieves.

They'd picked a wrong bunch to rob this time.

Obi-Wan opens his eyes and looks at the twi-lek. "I'm lying on it," he says, holding his hands in front of him.

"Sit up," the twi-lek whispers, urgent, and Obi-Wan wonders for a while what is the going price of a Jedi Lightsaber these days. A single lightsaber-quality kyber crystal is enough to make a fortune on, but a fully completed and functional _lightsaber_? Hundreds of thousands, easily. Maybe even millions.

Obi-Wan sits, slow, feeling the atmosphere. A man's angry desperation, a woman drawing harsh breaths as she hides her daughter, hides herself, hopes they don't know how pretty she still is. A young man with only one foot, his anger is cold and old, years of helplessness in the making. Another woman, older, oldest of them all – she's lost so much that she's past beyond the point of caring.

 _Their war was supposed to be over now_ , they all think, and Obi-Wan taps on that anger with his own thoughts lightly. _Enough_ , he thinks. _Enough. This is enough_.

"Enough!" someone shouts, and everything happens very fast.

Obi-Wan concentrates onto the twi-lek. Elbow to the wrist and dive to the side – the shot that would've hit his head meets the wall instead, and dies there. He turns the elbow into a grab, can't get at the man's wrist but he grabs him by the middle of his lower arm, enough to twist his arm away. The twi-lek turns his wrist, aims the gun – but by that time, Obi-Wan is already holding his own under the twi-lek's chin. His finger squeezes, and the trigger grinds audibly.

The twi-lek freezes, and drops his blaster. It clatters to the floor.

With him thusly handled, Obi-Wan pulls up his blaster, and aims.

The human thief is attacking the desperate man who is trying to wrangle his things back – there is a woman on the human's back, the old woman, who’s aiming her blows with near insidious precision to the man's kidneys.

The rodian is wrangling the mother, who is doing her best to claw his eyes out. The rhodian aims at her, tries to shoot her in the belly. Behind him another passenger, another refugee, is holding a vibroknife, looking for an opening.

Obi-Wan shoots twice, his aim Force-precise and perfect.

The noise quiets down slowly. There's harsh breathing in the air, the old woman takes few more shots at the human thief before noticing he's falling, and the mother is skittering back, looking suspicious even as blood drops from her face. It takes a while for them to realise what had happened.

Then they look at the twi-lek – the only one of the thieves still alive – and at Obi-Wan' whose blaster still smokes as he aims it back at the disarmed twi-lek.

"You're going to walk away," Obi-Wan says. "And you're going to tell everyone on this ship – we're not worth troubling."

"Yeah," the twi-lek says. "I'm going to do that, yeah. What's your name, kid?"

Obi-Wan says nothing and the twi-lek nods, and tries to go for his blaster. He stops at Obi-Wan's blaster barrel under his chin. "Go," Obi-Wan says.

The twi-lek goes, leaving behind his blaster and two dead bodies. The doors to the corridor close after him. Nobody cheers.

"You're the Last Young," someone says. It sounds like the mother.

Obi-Wan says nothing – just picks up the blaster from the floor by his bunk, and considers it. It's a good one – but he doesn't have the clips for it. Once the charge ran out, it would be out. Worse yet, he doesn't know it's fire rate or bolt trajectory. And chances are both would be heavily customised.

Still, you never know. Two blasters is always better than just the one.

His silence wears until people turn away, to the dead men on the floor. In less than ten minutes, the refugees have stripped both of everything valuable. The bodies are dumped out soon after.

Obi-Wan lays down, closes his eyes and adds two more to his mental tally.

* * *

 

He still dreams of the Jedi. They're faded dreams of things half forgotten, training salles and friends whose faces have started blurring in his memories, feel of combat with lightsabers rather than blasters and the ability to call stop whenever.

Sometimes he dreams of Qui-Gon Jinn, in mixture of longing and shame. He misses the hard won praise and the feel of a big, heavy palm on his shoulder – and he misses the rebuke, the quiet judgement, the censure. Qui-Gon had been his Master for a mere blink of time, he'd been firm and foreboding and powerful and that had only made the few words of kindness all the sweeter…

Obi-Wan doesn't quite recall his face anymore. He remembers long hair and tall stature and long nose in a face he vaguely recalls to be handsome, but the rest has faded in time. Did Qui-Gon have warm eyes? Were there lines on his face? He had a beard – was it full, did he trim it?

Probably best he doesn't remember. That way there is less to miss – less to imagine. Less to fantasise about.

And still he does, imagining Padawan Kenobi at his Master's side, doing missions, learning the ways of the Jedi Knight, looking eagerly forward to the day he'd become one himself. He imagines the training he will never get, the people he will never meet or help, the disputes he'd never help settle.

He imagines what might have happened if he'd called the Jedi Temple all those years ago, when the sides of Melida/Daan had shifted and it had became a war of Young against their Elders and Cerasi, their guiding light, had just died – what might have happened… if he'd called to Qui-Gon, begging for assistance…

But he hadn't.

Now he just wished he could stop dreaming of could-have-beens already.

* * *

 

"So."

Obi-Wan looks up from the bucket of slop these people are claiming is food. It's the twi-lek again – he's not particularly surprised. "You're not getting your piece back."

The said piece is now tucked in his waist band – beside the lightsaber.

"No, no, of course not," the twi-lek says, somewhat awkward. He hesitates a moment and then offers his hand. "Nayra."

Obi-Wan eyes the hand for a moment and then shakes it, very briefly but firmly. He doesn't offer his own name.

"So I'm guessing your thing, it’s legit then?" Nayra asks. "The lightsaber, I mean. You killed the Jedi it belonged to."

Obi-Wan frowns and looks away. "What of it."

"One hell of a selling point, being a Jedi killer," the twi-lek says, looking him up and down. "Not something many can claim – well, everyone can claim it, but _proving it_ , that's something else. You should – you should wear it open, you know. Make people think twice about bothering you."

"Or make them twice as eager," Obi-Wan says son what flatly. "What do you want, Nayra?"

The twi-lek hesitates for a moment and then shifts closer. "Well, you see, I find myself in bit of a bother, seeing as my two partners got recently done in. And you, you seem to have some skills and a history and you're a mercenary too, right? You don't look like you're prepping for job – so. I got a proposition for you."

Obi-Wan blinks at him and sighs, shaking his head and turning away. "Not interested."

"I know places where a Jedi killer might get some good work," Nayra offers. "Good, highly lucrative work. Work that –"

"Not interested," Obi-Wan says again and fills his bowl with the suspicious-looking slop. "Go find someone else to be your meal ticket."

Nayra lets out a frustrated breath and then reaches out to grab Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Hey, hey, listen…"

Obi-Wan elbows him in the gut, aiming for his solar plexus and making it hard enough to knock the man's breath out. He leaves Nayra gasping for breath and heads to find a place to eat his slop in peace.


End file.
